What did the researchers do and find?
Anxiety, anxiety, depression, Depression, post-traumatic stress
We used a single-blind parallel randomised trial to test the effectiveness of self-help MCT.A total of 240 CR patients with elevated anxiety and/or depression received either usual CR or usual CR plus self-help MCT.The addition of self-help MCT significantly improved anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)) compared to CR alone (standardised mean difference (SMD) = 0.38). In CR alone, 36% of patients met criteria for minimal clinically important improvement, compared to 59% achieving this status under MCT self-help.MCT self-help plus CR was also found to improve post-traumatic stress symptoms to a greater extent than CR alone. An unexpected finding was that MCT self-help was also associated with a reduced rate in worsening of anxiety and depression during CR.