Research Paper about Treatment Methods for Depression

Most people who have depression automatically assume that a SSRI or tricyclic antidepressant is the best way to manage their illness.  Depression is a difficult illness to treat since it varies from person to person and each person’s life experiences.  In some cases, natural alternatives might be a healthy substitute, even though the medical community can be doubtful regarding their actual effectiveness.  Because regular medication can be tracked and scientifically tested, natural alternatives do not have the doctoral backing. Their effectiveness is more speculative, but many studies have found them to show promising results in the treatment of depression.  A combination of prescribed medication, therapy and natural alternatives could also be helpful.  There have been several studies that depict whether remedies such as aromatherapy and exercise, complementary alternative therapies (CAM), alleviate the symptoms associated with depression.  

As a nurse, you always want to be able to provide alternative therapies to a patient.  What if your patient doesn’t believe in prescription medications that alter brain chemistry? What if your patient has had severe adverse effects from antidepressant medications, but still wants to keep a control on their anxiety or depression? These are all questions that a nurse should be knowledgeable on to provide the best patient care experience.  Older people also tend to have negative side effects to certain antidepressant that can make their depression worse if they have no method of coping with their diagnosis.  Children that are too young for antidepressants could have a significant impact from the use of CAM. Nurses, and all healthcare providers should be able to go above and beyond when providing patient care for those mentally ill, and sometimes a natural remedy can be the most beneficial intervention to implement.  

For gathering research on complementary and alternative therapy, I decided to use google scholar.  I used the advanced search method searching phrases such as “Complementary and alternative therapy AND Depression”, “Complementary and alternative therapy AND depression NOT antidepressant”, “Exercise and Depression”, and “Alternative medicine for depression health outcomes”.  These came up with several different hits that all were relevant to my topic.  While I had several options to choose from, I decided to go with the papers that focused on positive outcomes for CAM therapy.  I wanted to chose articles that consisted of types of CAM, what the effects were, and interpreting what the results meant for the study.  I tried to avoid the articles that focused on using CAM for chronic illness such as joint pain or cancer, because while that can correlate to depression it also opens the door to way too broad of a topic.  

For my research, I gathered a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to collect some emotional standpoints, and some information about how complementary and alternative therapy worked for depression diagnosed patients.  The first two articles both discussed how a specific alternative depression remedy affected their sample group.  The use of lavender has been reported to have anxiolytic, antidepressant, neuroprotective, and anti-inflammatory properties ().  This author took several previous research studies and literatures to see if there was a correlation between the effects of lavender and depression through a systematic review and meta-analysis.  The clinical trials surprisingly had no restrictions on the qualifications of the patients.  All they had to do was use lavender, in any form, to try to manage their depression symptoms.  Surprisingly enough, oral lavender showed statistically significant reduction in depression and anxiety scores after 4 weeks and managed to maintain positive effects up until week 10 ().  This is an extremely positive outcome for this research study because most oral antidepressants don’t start showing positive effects until a month of use.  It was also found that inhaled lavender can have a significant effect on the reduction of anxiety and depression in postpartum woman.  This goes hand in hand with another research study done on the study of acupuncture on patients with postpartum depression.  Postpartum depression can leave most woman feeling isolated and depressed beyond belief.  Since this type of depression is only temporary, using alternative therapy is way more realistic than beginning a new antidepressant therapy which is needed for long term treatment.  This research study was done by surveying eleven woman who had completed acupuncture therapy after giving birth.  The participants were encouraged to be free with their honest feedback.  After completing the research study, it was determined that the use of medications to alleviate their depression was compared to “feeling trapped between a rock and a hard place” ().  However, once started on acupuncture therapy they noticed an increase in hope with managing their depression.  Another study I researched talked about older people’s perspective on complementary and alternative therapy, specifically acupressure.  I thought this would be good to include in my research, because it went more into detail on how people perceive CAM rather than if it works in treating depression.  This study was done to explore older people’s knowledge, experience and perception about CAM and acupressure and their willingness to accept the acupressure intervention in residential aged care ().  This seemed very important to include because most older people like doing everything by the book.  If they have a cold, they take a Mucinex rather than using steam therapy or an alternative medicine.   This study was a qualitative descriptive study that used semi-structural interviews to gather the perspectives of each study participant ().  Unfortunately, most of the participants had very little knowledge on what CAM was.  They referred to this as practices outside medical treatment which is not entirely true.  This research study goes to show that older patients are not educated by their primary care provider or nurses about the alternative therapies to increased depression risk as they age.  CAM should not be limited to the younger generation or more “hippy type” background.  According to a study performed at the Yujun Neurology and Psychiatric Clinic between 2019 and 2020, 71 CAM users reported that their main reason for using CAM was hearing how effective it can be ().  38.05% of participants showed extremely high satisfaction levels.  While this may seem like a broken record, it just goes to show that natural remedies like chamomile or herbal medicine can be just as effective in treating depression as taking a prosaic pill.  While CAM can be a very effective way to treat depression, the patient still needs to provide full discloser of everything they are taking or doing to their primary care provider.  In a cross-sectional study done in the United Kingdom, several interviews were conducted with female herbal medicine users over the age of 18 to determine whether they communicated with their doctor about using CAM therapies (). While CAM is a safe alternative to antidepressants, they can still have medication interactions or potential harmful side effects.  For CAM to be used properly, it needs to be used safely and under the supervision of a primary care provider.  The results of this study showed that most woman over 18 had no clue about herb-drug interactions and did not report what they were taking to their health care workers ().