Exploring the clinical outcome of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for bipolar and unipolar depressive patients in routine clinical practice: a pilot study

BACKGROUND: Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) has been adopted as an evidence-based treatment for unipolar depressive disorder (UDD). Although MBCT has not been included in the treatment guidelines for bipolar disorder (BD), MBCT is regularly being offered to patients with BD in routine clinical practice. In this pilot study we used routine outcome monitoring (ROM) data to explore whether there are indications that patients with BD might benefit less from MBCT than patients with UDD in terms of feasibility and effectiveness. METHODS: The study population consisted of patients with BD (n = 30) or UDD (n = 501) who received MBCT at the Radboudumc Centre for Mindfulness in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Patients completed self-report measures of depressive symptom severity, worry, well-being, mindfulness skills and self-compassion pre- and post MBCT as part of the ROM. RESULTS: There were significant less patients with BD who decided to start MBCT after intake than patients with UDD. No differences in dropout between groups were found. Results showed significant moderate to large improvements in both groups after MBCT, while no differences between groups were found, on all outcome measures. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that there are no indications that MBCT, when delivered in heterogeneous patient groups in routine clinical practice, is less beneficial for patients with BD than patients with UDD in terms of feasibility and effectiveness. This lends support to conduct an adequately powered RCT to examine the (cost-)effectiveness of MBCT in BD as the next step before implementing MBCT on a larger scale in patients with BD.