Judged effectiveness of differing antidepressant strategies by those with clinical depression

To obtain views of an Australian sample of individuals who had experienced a clinical depressive episode and examine the judged effectiveness of a wide range of professionally recommended, self-help and less orthodox antidepressant strategies.

A survey was posted on the Black Dog Institute website until a large sample had been derived. Inclusion criteria resulted in a sample of 2692 respondents.

Effectiveness and benefit-burden scores (adjusting for not fully testing a strategy) were quantified for 31 strategies that had been trialled by at least 100 respondents. Many self-help strategies rated as strongly as professionally recommended strategies, with exercise being rated extremely highly. Intra-class comparisons of ratings identified some differentiation of antidepressant drugs but similar results for differing psychotherapies, while alternative drug strategies tended to return lower ratings than most formal antidepressant drugs.

Study results, together with results from mental health literacy studies, advance our understanding about consumers' views about the frequency of trialling quite differing strategies and offer some information about their judged effectiveness.