The relationship of functional impairment with anxiety and depressive symptoms in Transdiagnostic Cognitive Behavioural Group Treatment

Abstract

Background: It is essential to evaluate functional impairment when providing evidence-based practice. Much attention has been put into alleviating depressive, and anxiety symptoms, yet less on functional impairment. Studies have shown that we do not necessarily provide effective treatment or measure functional impairment in treatment seekers. Nonetheless, symptoms of depression and various anxiety disorders are associated with functional impairment. Aims: This study aimed to evaluate how functional impairment related to patients' depressive and anxiety symptoms in treatment and determine whether TCBGT is effective regarding functional impairment. Method: The patients were 92 adults seeking mild to moderate mental health problems at four primary health care centres in the capital area. They underwent a brief 6-week TCBGT. Mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) and paired samples t-test were executed to test our hypotheses. Results: There was an interaction between depressive, and anxiety symptoms, and functional impairment. Patients in the impaired group had higher anxiety-, and depressive symptom scores. There was no interaction between functional impairment and diagnosis. However, patients with depressive disorder experienced the greatest functional impairment. Treatment outcome revealed medium to large effect sizes for depressive, anxiety symptoms and medium for functional impairment. Discussion: Functional impairment should be measured when providing treatment for anxiety, and depressive disorders, especially the latter, as our results suggest poor outcome for functional impairment. Depressed patients are finishing treatment with still clinically significant functional impairment. The assumption of normality was not met for the mixed ANOVA. Therefore, our results are limited and should be interpreted with caution. Keywords: functional impairment, anxiety, depression, symptoms