Resumen de Gaudiebility Group Therapy in Depressed Patients: A Pilot Study

Ferrán Padrós Blázquez, María Patricia Martínez Medina, Ariel Graff Guerrero

• español

  gaudiebility; depression; well-being; group therapy; enjoy; anhedonia

• English

  Gaudiebility is defined as a set of modulators that regulates enjoyable experiences. Depressed patients are unable to enjoy life experiences. The aim of this pilot study was to test the efficacy of a group therapy approach based on gaudiebility principles in patients with unipolar depression. The experimental group included 7 patients who were diagnosed with unipolar depression and who scored less than 50 points on the gaudiebility scale. The control group consisted of 10 patients with similar characteristics. The experimental group was treated with both a standard treatment and gaudiebility therapy. The control group was treated only with the standard treatment. Our results showed improvement in the experimental group as indicated by the clinical scales evaluated: the Beck depression scale (24.57 to 13.14, p= 0.02), the gaudiebility scale (32.71 to 49.57, p= 0.04), the quality of life scale (87.14 to 104.43, p= 0.02), and the psychological well-being scale (61.86 to 82.14, p= 0.02). This improvement was maintained after both 3 months and 2 years. The control group showed statistically significant differences only in the quality of life scale (87.1 to 97.6, p= 0.014). Our study suggests that gaudiebility therapy intervention is effective as an additional treatment in patients with unipolar depression. Further exploration of this finding is required, including testing with other disorders and the use of a randomized placebo control study design.