Effectiveness of psychotherapy for treatment-resistant depression: a meta-analysis and meta-regression

Abstract

Despite substantial advances in treatment and management strategies for major depression, less than 50% of patients respond to first-line antidepressant treatment or psychotherapy. Given the growing number of controlled studies of psychotherapy for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and the preference for psychotherapy of depressed subjects as a treatment option, we conducted a meta-analysis and meta-regression analysis to investigate the effectiveness of psychotherapy for TRD. Seven different psychotherapies were studied in 21 trials that included a total of 25 comparisons. In three comparisons of psychotherapy v. treatment as usual (TAU) we found no evidence to conclude that there is a significant benefit of psychotherapy as compared with TAU. In 22 comparisons of add-on psychotherapy plus TAU v. TAU only, we found a moderate general effect size of 0.42 (95% CI 0.29-0.54) in favor of psychotherapy plus TAU. The meta-regression provided evidence for a positive association between baseline severity as well as group v. individual therapy format with the treatment effect. There was no evidence for publication bias. Most frequent investigated treatments were cognitive behavior therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and cognitive behavioral analysis system of psychotherapy. Our meta-analysis provides evidence that, in addition to pharmacological and neurostimulatory treatments, the inclusion of add-on of psychotherapy to TAU in guidelines for the treatment of TRD is justified and will provide better outcomes for this difficult-to-treat population.

Clinical guidelines for the management of treatment-resistant depression: French recommendations from experts, the French Association for Biological Psychiatry and Neuropsychopharmacology and the fondation FondaMental

“…However, high-quality studies that specifically sought to examine the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic treatments for TRD are scarce. In a recent meta-analysis investigating the effectiveness of psychotherapy for TRD, van Bronswijk and colleagues [46] found no evidence to conclude that there is a significant benefit of psychotherapy as compared with treatment as usual (TAU) (i.e. pharmacotherapy).…”

<p>Management of Treatment-Resistant Depression: Challenges and Strategies</p>

“…In combination with usual care, psychotherapy overall contributed to an improvement in depressive symptoms, especially when the psychotherapy employed was cognitive behavioural analysis system of psychotherapy (CBASP), cognitive behavioural therapy, interpersonal therapy or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. 141 Interestingly, cognitive behavioural therapy appeared to have good effects in the "medium" and "long term" ranges (12 and 46 months, respectively) after the acute treatment phase in terms of lower depression scores.…”

Vitamin D Doses from Solar Ultraviolet and Dietary Intakes in Patients with Depression: Results of a Case-Control Study

“…Recent network meta-analyses show that drug pharmacotherapy demonstrates minimal difference from placebo [ 4 , 5 ]. Other modalities such as electroconvulsive therapy and psychotherapy also showed similar results compared to sham procedures [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]. Dietary and lifestyle approaches hold potential as a novel intervention for the management of symptoms of depression [ 9 ].…”