| Depressive disorders affect a significant portion of the population while remaining undiagnosed underdiagnosed, undertreated and untreated. People often seek alternative healing modalities such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), acupuncture and herbal medicine, to ameliorate somatic symptoms that may be related to depressive states. This study examined the effectiveness of TCM in treating depressive symptoms, measured by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) pre/post treatment within a clinical setting. The study also investigated the holistic Chinese diagnostic schema for a prevalence of specific diagnostic patterns for depressed participants.; Of the 158 pre-treatment participants, 75 formed the Experimental Sample with pre/post treatment data. The Experimental Sample was stratified into three groups by level of symptom severity and treatment compliance. Self-selected participants presented primarily with somatic complaints. Male and female patients, 18 years and older, responded to self-report measures that included: a background survey, a medical history checklist, the BDI, the Mental Health Inventory (MHI), and a post-treatment questionnaire assessing perceived effectiveness of, and attitude towards treatment, and compliance with prescribed herbal medicine. The acupuncturist determined appropriate treatment between assessments, and improvement was ascertained by both participant and practitioner. Post-treatment data were collected after 4 or more TCM treatments (n = 52) and also included depressed participants (n = 23) who terminated with less than 3 treatments. In a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test design, residualized scores were created for symptom severity and psychological well-being, and treatment exposure was statistically controlled in an Analysis of Covariance.; Results indicated that the level of symptom severity was reduced significantly with adequate TCM treatment when compared with those who discontinued treatment prematurely. Statistical analyses demonstrated that the effectiveness of TCM treatment was unlikely to be attributable to other variables such as sample bias, regression to the mean, nonspecific effects associated with receiving TCM treatment, or spontaneous remission.; Additional findings revealed that when both depressed and nondepressed participants received adequate TCM treatment, their sense of well-being, as measured by the Psychological Well-being Index of the MHI, was significantly enhanced whereas it declined in depressed participants who discontinued treatment prematurely. These findings lend support to the holistic notion underlying TCM theory that treatment affects the organism in its entirety, including psychological states, and is not delimited to targeted somatic complaints.; Investigation of the Chinese holistic diagnostic schema revealed that the patterns of Yin Deficient, Spleen Deficient and Liver Qi stagnation occurred with significant frequency for depressed individuals. According to TCM theory, these patterns are closely interrelated and manifest conditions often seen in depression.; Although these findings contribute to the literature, the efficacy of TCM treatment was not demonstrated due to the lack of randomization and the omission of an untreated control group. The small sample size and the use of self-report measures were other limitations of the study. Future research comparing this modality to standard care in the treatment of depressive symptomotology offers significant promise. Also, exploring the potential of TCM in the treatment of a more severely depressed population is a challenge yet to be undertaken in the US. |
