Management of depression in rheumatoid arthritis: a combined pharmacologic and cognitive-behavioral approach.

Objective: To examine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral and pharmacologic treatment of depression in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Methods: Subjects (n = 54) with confirmed diagnoses of both major depression and RA were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: 1) cognitive-behavioral/pharmacologic group (CB-PHARM), 2) attention-control/pharmacologic group, or 3) pharmacologic control group. Measures of depression, psychosocial status, health status, pain, and disease activity were collected at baseline, posttreatment (10 weeks), 6-month followup, and 15-month followup.