Effektivität psychologischer Therapien von Panik und Agoraphobie: Meta-Analysen auf Störungsebene

Abstract

Efficacy of Psychological Treatments for Panic and Agoraphobia The present study compared the effectiveness of 7 different psychological treatments for panic and agoraphobia in a meta-analysis of 51 studies that included 99 treatment interventions. Pre-post effect sizes (ES) have been calculated for 7 clinical variables: main symptoms, number of panic attacks, intensity of panic attacks, general anxiety, depression, impairment, and general psychopathology. Long-term outcome has been investigated up to 2 years after the interventions. For panic disorder with agoraphobia exposure yielded the highest mean effect sizes for main symptoms (ES = 1.64). Regarding only the number of panic attacks, exposure and cognitive-behavioral treatments do not differ in their effectiveness (ES = 1.32 and ES = 1.13). Long-term outcome analyses suggest that both interventions were successful in maintaining their treatment gains. For all clinical variables exposure and cognitive-behavioral therapy showed clear and lasting improvements. For panic disorder without agoraphobia cognitive-behavioral therapy and applied relaxation yielded the highest mean effect sizes (ES = 1.32 resp. ES = 1.21) for main symptoms. Both treatments showed also improvements in the reduction of the number of panic attacks (ES = 1.24 resp. ES = 0.97) and the remaining clinical outcome variables. All treatment gains could be maintained up to 2 years after the interventions.