The effectiveness of transdiagnostic treatment by Unified Protocol on Symptoms of anxiety and depression comorbidity in housewives mothers

The aim of the present study was to determine the efficacy of the Unified Protocol (UP) for transdiagnostic treatment on comorbid symptoms of depression and anxiety of housewife mothers. 

This investigation was carried out as a semi experimental test on 30 housewives mothers from a schools in the Alborz province with comorbid depression and anxiety, subsequent to primary clinical assessment and obtaining study requirements were selected and randomly assigne to either transdiagnostic treatment (n =15) or a waiting list control group (n =15). The experimental group received 12 weekly transdiagnostic sessions. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) were used as outcome measures. The questionnaires were administered immediately before and after the intervention and 3 months following the termination of the intervention. For analyzing the achieve data, Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used.

The final results showed that by implementing the Unified Protocol, depression and anxiety symptoms of the participating housewife mothers, significantly decreased with p< 0.01 and p< 0.05, respectively.

The comparison between experimental and control group shows that, using Unified Protocol leads to reduction in anxiety and depression symptoms in the experimental group rather than control group.