Lay summary
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is the most common psychiatric disorder. Usual treatments for MDD have limitations including side effects and inadequate response rates. Consequently, Treatment-Resistant MDD (TR-MDD) causes significant individual suffering and high societal burdens.
Ketamine offers new opportunities as a highly effective short-term treatment for TR-MDD but relapse rates are high following treatment with Ketamine ending. Treatment guidelines recommend complementing medication treatment of MDD with therapy to improve response and delay relapse. However, the vast majority of Ketamine studies evaluate Ketamine treatment alone. It is not known if the addition of therapy to Ketamine treatment prolongs the clinical response and delays relapse for TR-MDD.
We therefore propose a pilot study comparing Ketamine with Ketamine plus Behavioural Activation Therapy (BAT) to evaluate whether BAT (an evidence-based therapy for MDD) prolongs the clinical response and delays relapse following a course of Ketamine treatment.