Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Professionals and Nonprofessionals as Instructors of "Coping with Depression" Classes for Elders

A comparison of 16 “professional” and 16 “nonprofessional” instructors of “Coping with Depression” classes for elders on several outcome measures (including depression, life satisfaction, and frequency of negative thinking) demonstrated that improvement occurred over time and that no significant differences were found between participants, grouped byleader status. These results suggest that persons without prior mental health experience whowork in senior programs can be adequately trained to lead behaviorally-oriented self-help classes for elders wishing to learn skills to cope with depression.