Bouldering psychotherapy is more effective in the treatment of depression than physical exercise alone: results of a multicentre randomised controlled intervention study.

Background: Recent scientific studies have suggested that climbing/bouldering is effective in alleviating depression when the comparison group was a waitlist control group, even when physical activity and other therapeutic approaches were controlled for. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a manualised psychotherapeutic bouldering intervention for depressed individuals, compared with an active control group performing physical exercise alone.

Methods: In a multicentre randomised controlled intervention trial, 133 outpatients with depression were assigned to either a bouldering psychotherapy (BPT) group or a home-based supervised exercise programme (EP).

A German climbing study on depression: a bouldering psychotherapeutic group intervention in outpatients compared with state-of-the-art cognitive behavioural group therapy and physical activation - study protocol for a multicentre randomised controlled trial.

Background: Besides classical approaches for treating depression, physical activity has been demonstrated to be an effective option. Bouldering psychotherapy (BPT) combines psychotherapeutic interventions with action-oriented elements from the field of climbing. The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of BPT compared with a home-based exercise program (EP - active control group, superiority trial) and state-of-the-art cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT - non-inferiority trial).

Predictors of the personal benefits and positive aspects of informal caregiving.

We investigated a) the number of reported benefits in an informal caregiving situation and b) the factors that predict the caregiver's (CG's) experience of benefits. In this cross-sectional study, we computed univariate analyses and a multiple regression analysis using a benefit score as the dependent variable. Participants were 734 informal CGs who provide care for a person with chronic care needs in Germany.

Dementia as a predictor of care-related quality of life in informal caregivers: a cross-sectional study to investigate differences in health-related outcomes between dementia and non-dementia caregivers.

Background: The objectives of this study with a large sample of informal caregivers (CG) were a) to compare health-related outcomes of CGs caring for a patient with dementia and those caring for a relative with another chronic disease and b) to check whether dementia is a predictor of CG's care-related quality of life (QoL) in CarerQoL-7D.

Methods: This cross-sectional study involved self-reported data from 386 informal CGs who applied for an initial grade or upgrade of the care level of the care recipient at the Medical Service of Compulsory Health Insurance Funds of Bavaria (Germany). By obtaining data this way, systematic biases often associated with the acquisition of CGs were prevented.