REVAMP – Research Evaluating the Value of Augmenting Medication with Psychotherapy: Rationale and Design

This report presents the rationale, design, and baseline sample characteristics for the REVAMP study. This project is a multisite clinical trial designed to evaluate the efficacy of augmenting state-of-the-art pharmacotherapy with psychotherapy in chronically depressed patients who fail to respond or respond incompletely to an initial trial of antidepressant medication. Background: Chronic forms of major depression disorder (cMDD) are longitudinally continuous forms of major depressive disorder (MDD), and may account for a significant portion of the societal burden of disease associated with MDD. Antidepressant medications and depression-focused psychotherapies have been shown to be effective for cMDD, though the majority fail to achieve remission following an acute course of treatment. There is a pressing need to evaluate whether the outcomes obtained from a well implemented medication algorithm combined with depression-focused psychotherapy can significantly enhance outcomes for cMDD. Rationale: Although there is evidence for the effectiveness of depression-focused psychotherapy for the treatment of cMDD, this is the first prospective, randomized, controlled trial investigating.