This study aimed to investigate if future thinking regarding
positive and negative events would change following ICBT
for depression delivered in two formats. There were no
effects on positive events, but a reduction of negative
events was found as assessed by the FTT index which
covers number of events, their emotional strength and
likelihood. Changes on the FTT index for negative events
were correlated with reductions in depressive symptoms,
indicating that changes in self-reported depressive symptoms
and decreased FTT index scores for negative events
tended to go together.
Overall there were some insignificant differences
between the two treatments, but no significant interaction,
which may be due to our small sample size. On the negative
FTT index both groups tended to improve to the same
extent. Previous studies on the FTT (Bja¨rehed et al. 2010)
have found that it is the positive events that are decreased
in depression compared to healthy controls, whereas in this
study it was the negative future events that were associated
with changes caused by the treatments. Moreover,
MacLeod et al. (1998) found that positive future thinking
increased in their sample of high-risk parasuicide patients
following treatment, and found no decrease of negative
future thinking. One possible explanation for the discrepant