- Depression diagnosis Prior research on differences in effectiveness of depression self-care intervention suggests that a diagnosis of major depression will be associated with greater effectiveness of the intervention. The metaanalysis by Gellatly found that RCTs with patients with pre-existing depression (vs those at-risk) was associated with greater effectiveness. Jerant studied an intervention to enhance patient self-efficacy for self-managing chronic illness, and found that individuals with more depressive symptoms were more likely to experience self-efficacy gains. We will analyze the following sub-groups: major depression, minor depression, neither.