Comparison of the Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression in Reducing Symptoms, Improving Quality of Life and Decreasing Suicidal Thoughts in Depressed Individuals

This study was aimed to compare the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy with behavioral activation treatment in reducing symptoms، improving quality of life and decreasing suicidal thoughts. A quasi-experimental method and mixed analysis of variances between-within group was conducted. The population included students of Islamic Azad University، Malayer Branch. Out of 364 individuals، 45 students with minimum score of 20 in Beck Depression Inventory were selected for the next stage in which though Structured Clinical Interview based on DSM-IV-TR (SCID-I) 34 ones with diagnosis of dysthymia were selected as study samples and randomly divided into two groups of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and behavioral activation therapy. The experimental group received therapeutic interventions for eight sessions. The measurements were carried out using Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and World Helth Organization of Quality of Life (WHO-QOL) in four phases including pretest، fourth week evaluation، posttest، and two-month follow-up. The findings showed that both mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and behavioral activation have similar effects on improving depressive symptoms، life quality and suicidal thoughts. In other words، time effect (the within-group effect) was significant (p<0. 05)، but the between-group effect was not significant. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and behavioral activation have the same effectiveness on the quality of life and suicidal thoughts of depressed subjects.