Depression therapy with injection drug users: results of a pilot study

The purpose of this article is to report the methods, results, and conclusions of a pilot study developed to test a depression therapy component to reduce depressive symptoms in injection drug users. The pilot study was conducted to determine if the depression therapy component should be added as an adjunct to a social-network HIV risk-reduction intervention. The major conclusion from our pilot study was that depression therapy appears to be effective in reducing depressive symptoms in injection drug users and should be tested to improve treatment outcome of depressed drug users participating in HIV risk-reduction interventions.