Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: GEOVAN MENEZES DE SOUSA JÚNIOR

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : GEOVAN MENEZES DE SOUSA JÚNIOR
DATE: 22/09/2023
TIME: 10:30
LOCAL: Centro de Biociências
TITLE:

Adjunctive effect of mindfulness in the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder: a biomarker-based clinical trial

KEY WORDS:

meditation, depression, cortisol, escitalopram

PAGES: 64
BIG AREA: Ciências Humanas
AREA: Psicologia
SUBÁREA: Psicologia Fisiológica
SPECIALTY: Psicobiologia
SUMMARY:

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) has become increasingly prevalent, especially in university settings. Currently, the usual treatment for MDD is antidepressant medication. However, there are some issues around pharmacotherapy, such as long latency to present clinical response, adverse effects, and limited efficacy. In this sense, efforts have been directed mainly toward two frameworks: the investigation of heterogeneity in the response to pharmacotherapy, identified as the main cause of low efficacy; and the investigation of complementary treatments that could increase the effectiveness of pharmacotherapy without increasing its adverse effects. For the first framework, it has been proposed to compose a panel of biomarkers to facilitate the understanding of their dynamics in response to treatment and their role in response heterogeneity. For the second, mindfulness-based interventions have been investigated for this purpose. Mindfulness can be defined as a state of consciousness, a trait, and a training, which has the meditation focused on the sensations of breathing and the body as the main tool. Its effects have been reported to reduce stress in non-clinical populations, and anxiety and depressive symptoms in clinical populations. Therefore, in this project we will compare the effectiveness of therapy with escitalopram (Pharmacotherapy Group) with the combined therapy of escitalopram + mindfulness (Mindfulness Group) in UFRN students and staff with MDD, both interventions lasting 12 weeks. Monitoring of the intervention occurred in person at three moments throughout the intervention (baseline phase and weeks 5 and 12 of the intervention), where psychological and biochemical data were collected. Trait mindfulness was found to influence on the severity of self-reported symptoms associated with depression, such as depressive and anxiety symptoms, self-esteem, and sleep quality; and a reduction in clinical and self-reported depressive symptoms resulting from the intervention was found, both for Pharmacotherapy and Mindfulness groups. The results corroborate the effectiveness of mindfulness as an adjuvant therapy. The next steps will be to investigate the effect of interventions on other symptoms related to major depression and the biological response to interventions, assessed using biochemical biomarkers.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1718518 - NICOLE LEITE GALVAO COELHO
Interna - 1350337 - FIVIA DE ARAUJO LOPES
Externa à Instituição - FERNANDA PALHANO XAVIER DE FONTES