Identifying Predictors of Successful Anhedonia Treatment

Background: Anhedonia, the loss of interest in previously rewarding activities, is a symptom of many psychiatric disorders. The purpose of the present investigation was to evaluate whether clinical variables and baseline characteristics predicted improvement in anhedonia due to psychotherapy. Methods: Fifty-five outpatients with clinically significant anhedonia (Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS) ≥ 20) participated in up to 15 weekly sessions of psychotherapy, at which they completed questionnaires concerning symptoms of anhedonia, depression, anxiety, and worry. A series of multiple linear regressions were conducted to examine whether pre-treatment depression, anxiety, and worry levels predicted change in anhedonia while controlling for pre-treatment anhedonia severity. Analyses of covariance were used to examine whether baseline characteristics predicted change in anhedonia. Results: Overall, when clinical symptoms (i.e., depression, anxiety, worry) were analyzed covarying for pre-treatment anhedonia severity, there were no unique predictors of change in anhedonia severity due to psychotherapy. When other participant characteristics (sex, marital status, employment status) were analyzed, covarying for pre-treatment anhedonia severity, females were more likely to show improvements in anhedonia severity following psychotherapy treatment, although this effect was not significant. Exploratory analyses examined race, sleep quality, and the presence of religion as predictors and found that only race was a significant predictor of change in anhedonia. Black participants were less likely to show improvements in anhedonia than white participants. Limitations: Future longitudinal research should include a comparison treatment sample to further understand predictors of successful anhedonia treatment. Conclusions: This is the first study to examine predictors of anhedonia treatment response in a transdiagnostic sample. More research is needed to understand the participant characteristics that predict anhedonia treatment response to improve personalized treatment approaches for anhedonia.Bachelor of Scienc