Background:Practice guidelines have recommended cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) as the treatment of choice for major depression disorder (MDD). However, whether one therapy is better than the other remains inconclusive. The aim of this study was to compare the treatment efficacy of the two treatment approaches for MDD.Methods:Using the terms “cognitive behavior therapy or cognitive therapy or CBT or CT or cognitive behavioral therapy” and “interpersonal psychotherapy or IPT,” we systematically searched PubMed, Psyclnfo and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure databases up to February 2017. The language was restricted to be English and Chinese. Therapeutic outcomes, characteristics, and research quality were then extracted and analyzed independently. In accessing the included studies, we followed the criteria suggested by the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions.Results:Data for 946 patients from 10 randomized controlled trials were included in the study. Methodological quality was not optimal in most trials. Meta-analysis showed a mean difference (MD) of −1.31, 95% confidence interval (CI) (−2.49, −0.12) (P < 0.05) in favor of CBT according to the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and however, we did not found any statistically significant difference between CBT and IPT on the Hamilton Rating Scale for depression (HRSD) (MD −0.90, 95% CI [−2.18, 0.38]). Subgroup analyses for the studies in which patients were treated only by psychotherapy (MD −1.26, 95% CI [−2.78, 0.35]) and for those which offered more sessions of therapies (MD −0.82, 95% CI [−2.23, 0.59]) showed there was no significant difference between CBT and IPT according to BDI.Conclusions:Differences in treatment efficacy seem to vary according to different outcome measures. CBT shows an advantage over IPT for MDD according to BDI, and there is no significant difference between the two according to HRSD. These results should be interpreted with caution.
Psychotherapy style is conceptualized as the therapeutic method that a therapist employs while working with clients during treatment. It influences both the therapeutic process and results of therapeutic actions. The present study developed and validated the Psychotherapy Style Scale (PSS). By following a systematic psychometric development process, a three-factor structure of the PSS was identified. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence of multidimensional structure and validity of the PSS. Cronbach’s α suggested that the resulting scale was highly reliable. Criterion validity was also satisfactory, demonstrated by correlations between the scale and criterion validity measures. The PSS has the potential to help better understand therapists’ behavioral characteristics and select the most appropriate therapists for clients who undergo psychotherapy.
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