Abstract

An evaluation of a brief cognitive-behavioral intervention oriented to an elderly group in order to decrease their anxiety and depressive symptomatology is outlined. Treatment was conducted during a 1 month period (two-2 hour sessions per week). Participants were 39 older persons from the city of Santiago (Chile). Their depression status was mild/moderate with anxious symptomatology, and were distributed to the experimental and control groups. Major used techniques were: Progressive Relaxation, Cognitive Restructuring and Psycho Education. For the analysis of results, a multivaried experimental design for the comparison of two groups, involving measurements pre, during, post and follow-up of the intervention was used. Results revealed statistically relevant (p<0.05) variances among the experimental and control groups for every measurement of both treatment and follow-up of the variables studied. The size of the effect was moderate-high for anxiety-state (0.74) and depression (0.68) and moderate for anxiety-trait (0.52). In relation to Power, it was high for all variables studied, with a value of 1 at the end of the research.