A new scale for assessing the quality of randomized clinical trials of psychotherapy.
BACKGROUND
In 2004, the American Psychiatric Association's Committee on Research on Psychiatric Treatments appointed a subcommittee to investigate the status of empirical evidence with regard to psychodynamic psychotherapy.


OBJECTIVE
As a part of this effort, the committee developed a rating scale designed to assess the quality of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of psychotherapy.


METHODS
A 25-item RCT of Psychotherapy Quality Rating Scale was generated by expert consensus. Interrater reliability, internal consistency, and validity testing were undertaken using 7 trained raters.


METHODS
A PubMed search was conducted to locate all RCTs of psychotherapies identified by their authors as being "psychodynamic" or "psychoanalytic" in origin and implementation.


METHODS
A total of 69 RCTs were independently rated by 2 raters.


RESULTS
The scale was found to have good interrater reliability (total score intraclass correlation = 0.76), internal consistency (Cronbach alpha = .87), and external validity.


CONCLUSIONS
This scale establishes a new standard for the design and execution of psychotherapy RCTs and provides a systematic empirical method for evaluating the quality of published RCTs.
Kocsis
James H
JH
Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY 10065, USA. jhk2002@med.cornell.edu
Gerber
Andrew J
AJ
Milrod
Barbara
B
Roose
Steven P
SP
Barber
Jacques
J
Thase
Michael E
ME
Perkins
Patrick
P
Leon
Andrew C
AC
D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D015588:Observer Variation; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016896:Treatment Outcome