title: Psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy randomized controlled trials are equally likely to report a positive outcome.
abstract: A very high proportion of controlled trials of psychotropic drugs report a positive outcome. To determine if the population of positive outcome in psychotherapy trials is as high as reported, a cohort of consecutive randomized controlled trials published in four internal psychiatry journals over a five-year period were analyzed. Chi square test and descriptive analysis were conducted. A total of 237 trials were included. Out of 188 pharmacotherapy trials, 164 (88%) reported a positive outcome. Out of 49 psychotherapy trials, 44 (90%) reported a positive outcome. The difference between above reported population was not statistically significant on chi-square test (p=0.626). It was concluded that positive outcome reports in published psychotherapy trials are as common as in pharmacotherapy trials.
authors.affiliation: National Centre for Brain Injury Rehabilitation, St. Andrew's Hospital, Northampton.
authors.forename: Rafey A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Faruqui
authors.forename: Syed
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ahmer
authors.forename: Aslam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bhatti
authors.forename: Alia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Faruqui
mesh_terms: D004358:Drug Therapy; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006801:Humans; D011613:Psychotherapy; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D016896:Treatment Outcome