A pilot study of the effectiveness of a transdiagnostic treatment for emotional disorders in primary care

Abstract: This study aimed to evaluate and determine the efficacy of a brief transdiagnostic treatment in group format for people with mild and moderate emotional disorders, and to establish correlations between the changes after treatment in the different variables. This work had a single-group experimental design with pre-post measures. Participants (n =18) were randomly assigned to the PsicAP-Cost project design, from which the experimental group data have been extracted. Participants were assessed pre- and post-intervention with the following measures: PHQ-15, PHQ-9, GAD-7, PSQW-A, RRS-B, and CERQ-18. Brief transdiagnostic therapy was found to be effective in reducing depressive symptoms (p = .001), anxious symptoms (p = .011), and worry (p = .018) with high/moderate effect sizes. In addition, significant positive correlations were found between changes in depressive symptoms and worry variables, and between changes in anxious symptoms and rumination. In conclusion, brief transdiagnostic treatments can be a treatment to consider for patients with mild and moderate emotional disorders in Primary Care due to their efficacy in some symptoms and their characteristics.