Changes in lifestyle for psychiatric patients three years after the start of short- and long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy and solution-focused therapy.
OBJECTIVE
Lifestyle is less favourable among individuals suffering from psychiatric disorders. We studied whether psychotherapy brings along changes in lifestyle and whether these changes differ between short-term and long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (SPP and LPP) and solution-focused therapy (SFT).


METHODS
A total of 326 outpatients, 20-46 years of age, with mood or anxiety disorder were randomly assigned to LPP, SPP and SFT. The lifestyle variables considered were alcohol consumption, smoking, body mass index (BMI), leisure time exercise and serum cholesterol. The patients were monitored for three years from the start of treatment.


RESULTS
During the three-year follow-up, BMI and serum cholesterol rose statistically significantly although no statistically significant trends were shown for alcohol consumption, smoking or exercise. SPP showed a disadvantage of increased alcohol consumption and serum cholesterol level when compared with LPP. SFT showed an advantage of reduced smoking in comparison with SPP.


CONCLUSIONS
Small therapy-specific changes in lifestyle may be a result from psychotherapy treatment. These lifestyle changes are apparently more common in short-term therapy. More studies are needed to verify these findings.
Knekt
P
P
Social Insurance Institution, P.O. Box 450, 00101 Helsinki, Finland. paul.knekt@thl.fi
Laaksonen
M A
MA
Raitasalo
R
R
Haaramo
P
P
Lindfors
O
O
D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D003657:Decision Making; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011613:Psychotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult