Effect of Distress Tolerance, Emotional Regulation and Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills Training on Symptoms of Depression

The prevalence of depression is so high that many therapeutic methods, including pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy, have been developed. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of distress tolerance, emotional regulation and interpersonal efficacy in the form of dialectical behavioral therapy on emotional, cognitive and physical symptoms of depression.
This research was a semi-experimental design (pre-test, post-test). Twenty-eight patients with diagnosis of post-adjuvant depression disorder were randomly assigned into 3 treatment groups (distress tolerance, emotional regulation and interpersonal efficacy) and one control group (N=8). Patients in the experimental group were treated for 8 weeks and then were examined by Beck Depression Inventory. Finally, the results were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, covariance and post hoc test (LSD) by SPSS-19 software.
All three experimental groups (distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal efficacy) had significant improvement after treatment. Also, the results of covariance analysis indicated that, dialectical behavioral therapy resulted in significant improvement in the emotional, cognitive and physical symptoms of depression in patients with adjustment disorder.
According to these results, it seems that teaching distress tolerance skills, emotional regulation and interpersonal efficacy in the form of dialectical behavioral therapy is an effective way in treating severity of depression symptoms.