Adolescents who received interpersonal psychotherapy for depression at school-based health clinics had fewer symptoms after 12 to 16 weeks than peers who received other kinds of psychotherapy at school, according to an article in the June issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry.

Adolescent affects 1.6 to 8.9 percent of American adolescents annually, but fewer than three of ten adolescents with mental health problems receive psychiatric services, the article states. Recently, school-based health clinics have become an important treatment setting for adolescents with mental health and general medical problems. Interpersonal psychotherapy focuses on current problems and helps the patient improve interpersonal relationships and reduce depressive symptoms.

Laura Mufson, PhD, and her colleagues assessed the effectiveness of interpersonal psychotherapy for depressed adolescents compared with treatment as usual for depressed adolescents at school-based mental health clinics.

The researchers studied 63 depressed adolescents (average age, 15.1 years; 84 percent female; 71 percent Hispanic) at five school-based mental health clinics in New York City. Of the total, 34 adolescents were assigned to receive 12 sessions of interpersonal psychotherapy over a 12- to 16-week period, and 29 were assigned to receive treatment as usual. Treatment as usual consisted of whatever psychological treatment the adolescents would have received had the study not been in place (generally, supportive, individual counseling).

“Adolescents treated with interpersonal psychotherapy compared with treatment as usual showed greater symptom reduction and improvement in overall functioning,” wrote the authors. The interpersonal psychotherapy group had fewer clinician-reported symptoms of depression, significantly better social function, greater clinical improvement, and greater decrease in clinical severity of depression than adolescents treated with treatment as usual.