FaReWell Depression: Clinical Trial Data on Facial Physiotherapy for Depression

A randomized controlled trial of 49 patients with mild to moderate depression tested a self-applied facial physiotherapy program. The primary outcome was change in depression severity measured by the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) over six weeks. The dataset, authored by M. Axel Wollmer and published on figshare, contains the results of this trial, showing a significant reduction in depression scores for the intervention group.

Use Cases

• Replicate statistical analysis of depression score changes based on the reported MADRS means and standard deviations.
• Study the efficacy of a physiotherapeutic intervention for mental health based on the described trial methodology.
• Investigate the facial feedback mechanism in affective disorders based on the program's focus on relaxing and toning specific facial muscles.

Strengths

• Data originates from a randomized controlled trial, a gold-standard study design.
• Report includes specific statistical results (F=6.37, p=.017, partial η²=.166) and pre/post means and standard deviations for both groups.
• Dataset is openly licensed under CC-BY-4.0, permitting reuse with attribution.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 325.3 KB PDF report; the underlying raw trial data (e.g., individual patient records, columns) is not provided.
• The sample size is limited to 49 patients, which may affect the generalizability of findings.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred from the published paper.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Randomized controlled trial.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-25 06:03:29; freshness should be verified.