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Comparisons of psychopharmacological and psychological treatment with cognitive behavioral therapy. |
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Wednesday, 14 November 2007 |
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Researchers from The University of Göttingen in Germany performed a meta-analysis of studies that compared pharmacological interventions with cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) or a combination of both methods for the relief of panic and anxiety.
Researchers from The University of Göttingen in Germany performed a meta-analysis, including only those studies which made a direct comparison of pharmacological, psychological (CBT or cognitive-behavioral therapy), or combined treatments for the relief of anxiety disorders. Sixteen studies on panic disorder, six studies on social anxiety disorder, and two studies on generalized anxiety disorder were analyzed and effect sizes calculated.
The analysis found that pharmacological treatment, cognitive-behavioral treatment, and the combination of both treatment modalities all led to substantial improvement between pre- and post-treatment. Combined pharmacological and psychological treatment was superior to one therapy or the other for panic disorder. For social anxiety disorder, there was only preliminary support for combined treatment. And, due to lack of sufficient data, no final conclusions were drawn for generalized anxiety disorder.
The study concluded that, while drug treatment and CBT showed equal efficacy, only in panic disorder was the combination of pharmacological and psychological treatment clearly superior to either treatment alone. For the other anxiety disorders, evidence for greater efficacy of the combination of treatments is still insufficient, due to the dearth of studies.
Citation: Bandelow B, Seidler-Brandler U, Becker A, Wedekind D, Rüther E. Meta-analysis of randomized controlled comparisons of psychopharmacological and psychological treatments for anxiety disorders. World Journal of Biological Psychiatry. 2007; 8 (3): pages 175-87.
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