Blog
The Psychotherapy Practice Research Network (PPRNet) blog began in 2013 in response to psychotherapy clinicians, researchers, and educators who expressed interest in receiving regular information about current practice-oriented psychotherapy research. It offers a monthly summary of two or three published psychotherapy research articles. Each summary is authored by Dr. Tasca and highlights practice implications of selected articles. Past blogs are available in the archives. This content is only available in English.
This month...
…I blog about therapeutic skill in telepsychology versus face-to-face therapy, patient confidence and symptom improvement, and progress feedback.
Type of Research
Topics
- ALL Topics (clear)
- Adherance
- Alliance and Therapeutic Relationship
- Anxiety Disorders
- Attachment
- Attendance, Attrition, and Drop-Out
- Client Factors
- Client Preferences
- Cognitive Therapy (CT) and Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
- Combination Therapy
- Common Factors
- Cost-effectiveness
- Depression and Depressive Symptoms
- Efficacy of Treatments
- Empathy
- Feedback and Progress Monitoring
- Group Psychotherapy
- Illness and Medical Comorbidities
- Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)
- Long-term Outcomes
- Medications/Pharmacotherapy
- Miscellaneous
- Neuroscience and Brain
- Outcomes and Deterioration
- Personality Disorders
- Placebo Effect
- Practice-Based Research and Practice Research Networks
- Psychodynamic Therapy (PDT)
- Resistance and Reactance
- Self-Reflection and Awareness
- Suicide and Crisis Intervention
- Termination
- Therapist Factors
- Training
- Transference and Countertransference
- Trauma and/or PTSD
- Treatment Length and Frequency
October 2014
Psychological Interventions for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Gerger, H., Munder, T., Gemperli, E., Nuesch, E., Trelle, S., Juni, P., & Barth, J. (2014). Integrating fragmented evidence by network meta-analysis. Relative effectiveness of psychological interventions for adults with post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychological Medicine, doi:10.1017/S0033291714000853.
Gerger and colleagues conducted a network meta-analysis to summarize the evidence on the effectiveness of psychological interventions for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Psychological trauma is common in the population (between 40% and 90% lifetime prevalence), and many people develop symptoms following the trauma that may turn into PTSD. For example people may re-experience the traumatic event, avoid stimuli related to the traumatic event, or experience increased arousal. Even those who do not meet DSM-IV criteria for PTSD may still have severe impairment and chronic symptoms. Specific interventions for PTSD include exposure to trauma related stimuli or working through cognitions related to the trauma. Non-specific interventions might include supportive therapy or relaxation treatments. As I mentioned in previous blogs, meta-analyses are the best way to summarize the evidence of existing research in order to make clinical decisions about practice. Meta-analyses allow us to pool the effect sizes from individual studies of many patients into an average effect. This method provides the most reliable estimates of the effects of treatments – no single study can be as reliable. Network meta-analysis is a relatively new method that not only allows one to accumulate results from trials that directly compare the same two treatments, but it also allows indirect comparisons of a treatment and another treatment that was tested in a different study. In their network meta-analysis, Gerger and colleagues included 66 studies representing 4,196 patients. Specific treatments included cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT), eye movement disensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and exposure based therapy (ET). Non-specific interventions included stress management (SM) and supportive therapy (ST). The positive effect of specific interventions (CBT, EMDR, and ET) compared to a wait-list control was large. The positive effect of non-specific interventions (SM, ST) compared to a wait-list control was moderate. There were no differences in effectiveness among the psychological interventions, except EMDR outperformed ST. However, this difference disappeared when only the large scale trials were considered (results from large scale trials tend to be more reliable). Patients with a formal diagnosis of PTSD appear to benefit more from psychological interventions than those with sub-clinical PTSD, though both groups improved.
Practice Implications
Different specific interventions for PTSD (CBT, EMDR, ET) appear to have similar positive benefits with large effects. Indirect interventions show moderately positive effects. Supportive therapy (ST) may be beneficial, but the authors indicated that it is too early to conclude that ST is as effective as direct specific interventions. All patients benefit from psychological interventions, though those with more severe symptoms stand to gain the most. Given the similar outcomes of interventions and the number of effective interventions, researchers are now arguing that factors such as access, acceptability, and patient preference should influence the choice of treatment.
September 2014
Long-Term Effects of Psychotherapy for Depression
Steinert, C., Hofmann, M., Kruse, J., & Leichsenring, F. (2014). Relapse rates after psychotherapy for depression - stable long term effects? A meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.06.043
As I reported in the June 2014 Blog depression is the most highly prevalent of the mental disorders with a lifetime prevalence of about 16%. It is responsible for enormous personal and economic burden for individuals and their families. Depression can occur as a single episode, however recurrence of depressive episodes can range from about 35% to 85% of those who were depressed. About 10% of cases experience chronic depression. Studies report that chronic or severe depression result in a lower response to interventions, including psychotherapy. Meta analytic research shows that a number of psychotherapeutic interventions are equally effective for treating depression (see also the July 2014 Blog). However, all of these meta analytic reviews of the effects of psychotherapy for depression referred to studies demonstrating short or medium term effectiveness. There are very few studies that report long term effectiveness of any type of treatment (psychological or pharmacological) for depression. This is a problem given the fluctuating and sometimes chronic course of the disorder. Randomized controlled trials of psychotherapy are expensive and time consuming, and collecting follow up data is difficult. And so it is not surprising that few studies assess outcomes after one or two years post treatment. Steinert and colleagues conducted a meta analysis looking specifically at studies that documented long term (i.e., greater than 2 years) post psychotherapy outcomes for depression. (A note on meta analyses: Meta analyses are a set of procedures that allow one to statistically combine the effects of many studies in order to estimate the average effect across many studies and participants. Meta analyses produce much more reliable results than any single study can produce, and so meta analyses are the best way of summarizing research to affect practice). Steinert and colleagues found 11 studies of 966 patients that reported outcomes beyond 2 years post psychotherapy. Six of the studies compared psychotherapy to another intervention (e.g., medications, treatment as usual, clinical management). The authors found that 40% of patients treated with psychotherapy had at least one relapse in a follow up period averaging about 4 years. Compared to non-psychotherapy interventions psychotherapy had a significantly lower likelihood of experiencing a relapse. Despite the positive long term outcomes of psychotherapy for depression, the authors noted that there was a great deal of inconsistency across studies (i.e., hetereogeneity), which lowers ones confidence in the reliability of these findings.
Practice Implications
There are very few studies of long term (> 2 years post treatment) outcomes of psychotherapy for depression. In the June and August PPRNet Blogs, I reported on large scale worldwide reviews that indicate how pervasive depression can be, and how detrimental depression is to health and well being. Depression can be recurrent and chronic for some, so demonstrating long term outcomes is important. On the positive side, psychotherapy results in 60% of individuals not experiencing relapses 4 years post treatment, and psychotherapy resulted better long term outcomes than non-psychotherapy interventions. However, having so few studies that assess long term outcomes reduces our confidence in these findings. A number of psychotherapies including cognitive behavioral therapies, psychodynamic therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, and others are effective for treating depression.
August 2014
Long-Term Outcome of Psychodynamic Therapy and CBT in Social Anxiety Disorder
Leichsenring, F., Salzer, S., Beutel, M.E., Herpertz, S., Hiller, W. et al. (2014). Long-term outcome of psychodynamic therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy in social anxiety disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, Advance online publication: doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.13111514.
Social anxiety disorder is a highly prevalent mental disorder, with lifetime prevalence of about 12% in the population. As Leichsenring and colleagues note, the disorder has an early onset and can have a chronic course leading to many psychosocial impairments. Also, social anxiety disorder often is comorbid with depression. There is good evidence for the efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for social anxiety disorder and some evidence for psychodynamic therapy (PDT), but most studies have only assessed short term outcomes. In this large mulit-center randomized controlled trial comparing CBT and PDT for social phobia, Leichsenring and colleagues report on outcomes up to 2 years post treatment. The study had 416 adult patients randomly assigned to one of the treatments, and 79 randomly assigned to a waiting list. Outcomes were reported at post, 6 months, 12 months, and 24 months post treatment, and included remission of social phobia, depression levels, and interpersonal problem scores. The CBT intervention for social phobia was based on the model by Clark and Wells. The PDT was based on Luborsky’s model but specifically adapted for social phobia. Participants received 25 sessions of individual therapy, and therapists received advanced training in the models. CBT resulted in significantly greater remission of social phobia than PDT at post treatment, but the difference was small. Remission rates at 6, 12, and 24 months post treatment were not different between treatments. At 2 years post treatment 39% of those receiving CBT and 38% of those receiving PDT no longer had clinical symptoms of social phobia. Results were similar for interpersonal problems in which CBT showed an earlier response, but the two treatments were equivalent at each follow up. Depression scores improved for both interventions at post and follow ups.
Practice Implications
The findings of this large study suggest that both CBT and PDT are effective treatments for social phobia. Although CBT had a small advantage at post treatment, PDT appeared to have an “incubation effect” in which patients continued to work on interpersonal problems and symptoms of social phobia over the longer term. Despite these positive outcomes, Leichsenring and colleagues suggest that there remains room for improvement in treating social phobia. Those who do not respond to these interventions may require different forms of treatment that is more specific, intense, or of longer duration. Leichsenring and colleagues also suggest integrating elements of the effective treatments within a single protocol. Although intuitively appealing, this integrated approach has not been tested.
July 2014
Comparing Seven Psychotherapies for Depression
Barth, J., Munder, T., Gerger, H., Nuesch, E., Trelle, S. et al. (2013) Comparative efficacy of seven psychotherapeutic Interventions for patients with depression: A network meta-analysis. PLoS Med 10(5): e1001454. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001454
As I wrote about in the June, 2014 blog, depression is a highly burdensome disorder and is the third leading cause of disability worldwide after lower respiratory infections and diarrhoeal diseases. Depression occurs in 4.4% of the world population. Identifying effective treatment for depression is critical to reduce its health and economic burden. There is broad based consensus that psychotherapy is effective for depression, but there remains ongoing debate about which therapies are more effective. Establishing the relative efficacy of psychotherapy for depression is important because many patients do not respond to any one type of treatment – and so they may benefit from different options. Although some meta-analyses have synthesized research that compared pairs of treatments against one another within studies, these meta analyses do not allow one to pool these comparisons of treatments across studies in a comprehensive way. The study by Barth and colleagues uses a relatively new method called network meta analysis in which many treatments can be compared to each other at once by pooling comparisons of treatments to alternate treatments across a number of studies. As a result the authors were able in one meta analysis to compare the relative efficacy of seven different treatments for depression. The seven therapies were defined as follows: (1) Interpersonal Psychotherapy: a brief and structured therapy that focuses on interpersonal issues in depression; (2) Behavioral Activation: raises the patient’s awareness of pleasant activities and seeks to increase the patient’s positive interactions with the environment; (3) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: focuses on a patient’s negative beliefs, how they affect current and future behavior, and restructures the beliefs; (4) Problem Solving Therapy: defines a patient’s problems, proposes solutions for each problem, and then selects the best solution; (5) Psychodynamic Therapy: focuses on unresolved conflicts and relationships and the impact they have on a patient’s current functioning; (6) Social Skills Therapy: teaches skills that help to build and maintain healthy relationships; and (7) Supportive Counseling: aims to help patients talk about their experiences and emotions, and offers empathy. The network meta analysis included 198 clinical trials that represented 15,118 patients in which the seven psychotherapies were compared to each other or to a control condition. All seven psychotherapies were better than wait list controls or usual care, with moderate to large differences. That is, the average patient receiving psychotherapy was better off than about half those in a control condition. Researchers found small or no differences when the seven therapies were compared to each other. Treatments worked equally well for different patient groups (e.g., younger vs older; post natal depression; etc.), and in different modalities (individual vs group).
Practice Implications
All seven therapies were effective in reducing depression and none of the seven therapies in this network meta analysis stood out as superior to the others. The findings suggest that patients have a number of viable options for psychotherapeutic treatment for depression. This is important because, about 40% of patients do not benefit from the treatments they do receive, though they may benefit from another approach and will require other options. Client preferences may play a critical role in determining outcomes for some. If possible, patients should be given the option of the type treatment they may prefer or the option of the type of therapist with which they may be most comfortable.
June 2014
Global Burden of Depression
Ferrari, A.J., Charlson, F.J., Norman, R.E., Patten, S.B., Freedman, G., et al. (2013). Burden of depressive disorders by country, sex, age, and year: Findings from the global burden of disease study 2010. PLoS Medicine, 10(11): e1001547. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001547.
Depressive disorders are among the most common mental disorders that previously were described as a leading cause of burden in the world. In epidemiological literature, burden is defined in several ways. One common metric is “disability adjusted life years” (DALYs) which represents loss of a healthy year of life. DALYs can be aggregated into the “years of life lived with disability” (YLD). Another metric is the “years of life lost due to premature mortality” (YLL). Each of these metrics of burden can be estimated from aggregating data from a number of studies and meta analyses that assess burden world wide. Such epidemiologic studies can also look at relative burden across countries, ages, and sex. In the 2000 Global Burden of Disease report, depressive disorders were the third leading cause of burden after lower respiratory infections and diarrhoeal diseases. Depression was also the leading cause of disability, responsible for 13.4% of years of life living with disability in women and 8.3% in men. In this study by Ferrari and colleagues, the authors provide a 2010 update to the Global Burden of Disease report for major depressive disorder and dysthymia. Major depressive episode is the experience of depressed mood almost all day, every day, for at least 2 weeks. Dysthymia involves a less severely depressed mood with duration of at least 2 years, a chronic rather than episodic course, but with low rates of remission. Ferrari and colleagues reviewed over 700 studies from 1980 to 2010. Prevalence (i.e., current rate) of major depression and dysthymia in the world population is 5.95%, representing nearly 400 million people. Major depression (4.4%) occurs more frequently than dysthymia (1.55%). Major depression occurs more frequently among women (5.5%) than men (3.2%). Major depression accounted for 8.2% of all years lost to disability, making it the second leading cause after low back pain. The percent of years lost due to disability increased since 1990, largely due to population increases and aging of the world population. The highest level of burden due to depression was seen in Afghanistan and the lowest in Japan. In terms of world regions, North Africa and Latin America showed the highest levels of burden due to depression. The authors also reported that 2.9% of disability adjusted life years from ischemic heart disease can be attributed to major depression.
Practice Implication
This study joins others in past decades to define depression as a leading cause of years lost to disability worldwide, with over 400 million people suffering from a depressive disorder. The increasing burden of depression is partly due to decreasing mortality caused by other diseases in developing countries and population aging. Countries that have recently experienced conflict (e.g., Afghanistan, North Africa, Middle East) were particularly burdened by depression. But research has also linked depression to intimate partner violence and child sexual abuse. Mortality is elevated with major depression, as is disability related to other medical problems like heart disease. This epidemiological research points to the importance of identifying and treating depression in the population. Psychotherapeutic interventions provide highly effective treatments for depression.
April 2014
Medication Versus Psychotherapy for Depressive and Anxiety Disorders
Cuijpers P, Sijbrandij M, Koole SL, Andersson G, Beekman AT, Reynolds III CF (2013). The efficacy of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy in treating depressive and anxiety disorders: A meta-analysis of direct comparisons. World Psychiatry, 12, 137-148.
Both psychotherapy and antidepressant medications are efficacious treatments for depression and anxiety disorders. However, there remains some debate about whether they are equally effective for all disorders, and whether psychotherapy and antidepressants are equally efficacious for each disorder. As I indicated in the March 2014 blog, antidepressant medications alone have become the first line of treatment for many who have depressive and anxiety disorders. However, a recent meta analysis concluded that monotherapy with medication alone was not optimal treatment for most patients, and that adding psychotherapy results in clinically meaningful improvement for most patients. Cuijpers and colleagues (2013) reported on an overall meta analysis of the studies in which psychotherapy and medication were directly compared to each other in adults with depressive disorders, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety disorder (SAD), or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They combined the effects of 67 studies including 5,993 patients. Forty studies included depressive disorders and 27 included anxiety disorders. Most therapies (49 of 78) were characterized as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and the others included interpersonal psychotherapy, psychodynamic therapy, and non-directive counselling. Most patients were seen in individual treatment for 12 to 18 sessions. The most commonly prescribed medications were selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). The overall mean effect size for the difference between psychotherapy and medications was almost zero, indicating no significant difference. Regarding specific disorders and treatments, pharmacotherapy was more effective for dysthymia, but the effect size was small. By contrast, psychotherapy was more effective for OCD, and the effect size was moderately large. SSRI had similar effects to psychotherapy, but non-directive counselling was less effective than pharmacotherapy, though the effect was small.
Practice Implications
This meta analysis by Cuijpers and colleagues found that the differences between psychotherapy and antidepressant medications were non-existent for major depression, panic disorder, and SAD. Although antidepressants were more effective for dysthymia, the difference was small and disappeared when study quality was controlled, and so this finding is not reliable. Psychotherapy was clearly more effective for OCD even after adjusting for study quality and other factors. This is the first meta analysis to show the relative superiority of psychotherapy for OCD, and suggests psychotherapy as a first line treatment. The meta analysis only looked at post treatment results and not at longer term effects. There is evidence from other research showing that antidepressants do not have strong effects after patients stop taking them, whereas psychotherapy’s effects tend to be sustained in the longer term.