Therapies Currently Used by Psychiatrists and Psychologists in the Treatment of Unipolar Depression

The purpose of the researcher was to determine which psychotherapies were currently used by psychiatrists and psychologist in Nebraska for the treatment of unipolar depression. The subjects were 17 psychiatrists and 14 psychologists practicing in Nebraska. Independent variables were professional title, date when highest degree was received, work setting, staff size, age, number of years of treating patients with unipolar depression, number of depressed patients, and percentage of total patients treated who had unipolar depression. Dependent variables were the reported frequency of use of biomedical, psychoanalytical, cognitive, and behavioral techniques. The seven null hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance for two main effects and an interaction. The null hypothesis was rejected for the main effect between psychiatrists and psychologist for cognitive techniques. Psychologists reported a significantly higher frequency of use for cognitive techniques than did psychiatrists. A significantly lower frequency of use of psychoanalytical hypothesis pertaining to the work setting was rejected. The only statistically significant interaction at the .05 level for the dependent variable biomedical techniques was for number of years that psychotherapists had treated patients with unipolar depression and professional title. Of the 84 comparison made, only three were found to be statistically significant. One main effect was the frequency of use of the cognitive techniques between psychiatrists and psychologists. The other main effect that was significant was found in the frequency of use of psychoanalytical techniques between psychotherapists in private practice and psychotherapists in all other work settings. The one significant interaction was between professional title and the number of years the psychotherapist had treated patients with a unipolar depressive disorder for dependent variable the use of biomedical techniques