Abstract
Background: Various psychotherapies are used extensively in treating different mental disorders, but still relatively little is known about the long-term health and cost effects of different therapies. The aim of this study is to compare the cost-effectiveness of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (SPP) and solution-focused therapy (SFT) in the treatment of depressive and anxiety disorders during a three-year follow-up. Methods: A total of 198 outpatients suffering from mood or anxiety disorder were randomized to SPP or SFT. Symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, the Symptom Check List Anxiety Scale, the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, and the Symptom Check List Global Severity Index. Both direct and indirect costs due to mental health problems were measured. Results: The symptoms of depression and anxiety were reduced statistically significantly according to all 5 psychiatric outcome measures during the first 7 months, after which only minor changes were observed. The differences between the two groups were small and not statistically significant. The direct costs were about equal in both groups but the indirect costs were somewhat higher in the SPP group, although not statistically significantly. The costs of auxiliary treatments were much higher than the cost of SPP or SFT. Conclusions: With regard to cost-effectiveness, there is little difference between SPP and SFT.
Highlights
The effects of auxiliary treatments are usually taken into account in economic evaluations, but the need for economic evaluations of psychotherapies has been recognized for years, the number of such evaluations has remained modest, and especially studies with longer follow-up periods are rare
The aim of this study is to enlarge our knowledge in this respect by producing a comprehensive view of the various direct and indirect costs arising when patients have been treated either with short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (SPP) or solution-focused therapy (SFT), as well as to assess changes in symptoms utilizing several health outcome indicators during a 3-year follow-up period
Our study showed that symptoms of depression and anxiety were reduced substantially and by about the same amount in both therapy groups
Summary
Numerous studies have demonstrated that short-term psychotherapies are effective in the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders, and in meta-analyses no significant differences in the effectiveness of different types of shortterm psychotherapies have been observed [1] [2]. The aim of this study is to enlarge our knowledge in this respect by producing a comprehensive view of the various direct and indirect costs arising when patients have been treated either with short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (SPP) or solution-focused therapy (SFT), as well as to assess changes in symptoms utilizing several health outcome indicators during a 3-year follow-up period. The aim of this study is to compare the cost-effectiveness of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (SPP) and solution-focused therapy (SFT) in the treatment of depressive and anxiety disorders during a three-year follow-up. Symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, the Symptom Check List Anxiety Scale, the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, and the Symptom Check List Global Severity Index Both direct and indirect costs due to mental health problems were measured. Conclusions: With regard to cost-effectiveness, there is little difference between SPP and SFT
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