Descriptive statistics was used to describe the groups’ characteristics. To test for homogeneity between groups for the demographic and health history data, chi-square or the Fisher’s exact test was employed. The Shapiro–Wilk test was used to examine the normality of the GDS-15, and results showed that it was normally distributed, and thus parametric tests were used. ANCOVA was used to determine whether there was any statistically significant difference in depression levels between groups at each time point. Repeated measures (RM) ANCOVA was used to examine the within, between and interaction effects and adjusted by subjects’ demographic data. If the assumption of sphericity was violated, the Greenhouse–Geisser correction was used, and the significance level of p < 0Æ05 was adopted.