King's College London , Institute of Psychiatry , Psychological Medicine and Psychiatry

King's College London , Institute of Psychiatry , Psychological Medicine and Psychiatry

The Befriending Project was established in 1991 by Professor George Brown and Dr Tirril Harris, based at the Psychological Medicine and Psychiatry Department of the Institute of Psychiatry, later part of King's College London. This was a randomised controlled trial, comprising two stages. The project investigated whether befriending could improve remission rates from chronic depression.

The first stage of the project comprised interviews; the sample patients were divided into three groups and given ID numbers; these were: the intervention group containing 60 patients, the control group containing 60 patients and a group of 56 volunteer befrienders.

During the second stage of the project those in the control group, who had been followed up and found not to have recovered, were offered befriending and many accepted. These patients were given a second ID number and formed part of the second stage intervention group; new participants and new control group members joined the project at this stage.

Professor George Brown's teams used psychosocial measures originally developed to explain the onset of depressive episodes, factors which might also perpetuate disorder, including the LEDS (Life Events and Difficulties Schedule) with SLEDS (Shortened Life Events and Difficulties Schedule), Professor George Brown and Dr Tirril Harris, 1978; the SESS (Self Evaluation and Social Support Schedule), Brown et al, 1986, 1990; the COPI (Coping with Severe Events and Difficulties Interview), Professor Antonia Bifulco and Brown, 1996; the CECA (Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse) with MINICECA, Bifulco, Brown and Harris, 1994; the ASI (Attachment Style Interview) Bifulco et al, 2002 with the Bedford College version of the SCAN (Schedule for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry), Professor John Wing et al, 1990. The project spanned four years.