Purpose&Contents : The research aimed to develop and supply (1) screening protocols for high risks of mood disorders and (2) early intervention program for those high risks, thus to establish a model of an indicative prevention program for mental ...
Purpose&Contents : The research aimed to develop and supply (1) screening protocols for high risks of mood disorders and (2) early intervention program for those high risks, thus to establish a model of an indicative prevention program for mental disorders in a community. The procedure consisted of collecting candidate markers that might predict future mood disorders, such as childhood trauma, emotion regulation ability, resilience, intepersonal sensitivity, physiological rhythm, into a screening protocol, analyzing those markers in healthy subjects and patients populations to find associations with disease development, and final yielding a screening tool. An early intervention program for high risks has been developed through concatenating essential skills of effective psychosocial treatments. A total of 12 sessions or of 7 sessions intervention program was prepared and tested.
Results : A ‘protection rating scale’ was developed and included in the screening protocol. The short, easily applicable self-rating scale has 12 questions made by extracting factors that were highly related to depressive symptoms in healthy and depressed. The scale has risk related items and protective factor-related items to complement depressive symptoms rating scales, which can help prediction of future mood disorder in subjects having subthreshold depressive symptoms. A more comprehensive version of screening protocol aims to be used for research purpose. An early intervention program was invented by experts on psychosocial treatments of mood disorders. Five essential skills from psychoeducation, cognitive-behavioral therapy, interpersonal social rhythm therapy, emotion regulation training, and problem solving techniques have been modified to be applied to those with subthreshold symptoms.
Expected Contribution : The outcome can be applied to identify and treating hish risks for mood disorders in various communities. Thus by reducing incidence and prevalence rates of mood disorders, it will contribute to mental health care in a community and decreasing illness burden in a society. As an advanced model of an indicative prevention program, our topic will provoke further developments in mental health care.