Introduction: eventhough fatigue had been considered as one of the main symptoms of depression, few research has been conducted about it. Both antidepressants and psychotherapies has difficulty treating fatigue. Self-criticism which is highly related with fatigue, is considerd as an obstacle in treating depressed patients. the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effectiveness of Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy on fatigue and self-criticism of depressed patients.
Methods: this was a randomized controlled trial and from patients with Major Depressive disorder of neuropsychiatric clinics in Qom during winter 2023, 64 eligible individuals were selected using randomized clustered sampling and were randomly assigned into intervention (ISTDP) and control group. The data from Multidimentional Fatigue Index (MFI-20) and Self-criticsm Scale (SCS) in pretest and posttest were analyzed via SPSS-26 through analyze of covariance (MANCOVA).
Results: The results of the multivariate covariance test showed that there is a significant difference between the ISTDP group and the control group in a combination of variables of fatigue and self-criticism (F=36.81 and P<0.5). Also, the results of Bonferoni's post hoc test showed that the average of the group receiving the ISTDP program is significantly less than the average of the control group in both the variable of fatigue and the variable self-criticism (P<0/05).
Conclusion: According to the results of the research, it can be said that the ISTDP can be an effective treatment for fatigue and self-criticism of depressed patients.