title: Psychotherapy Versus Pharmacotherapy of Depression: What's the Evidence?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Depression may be treated by psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy or their combination. There is an ongoing debate whether one of these approaches is possibly superior. A recent meta-analysis reported results in favour of pharmacotherapy.
  
  
  METHODS
  Individual studies and meta-analyses on the comparative efficacy of psychotherapy vs. pharmacotherapy were reviewed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Evidence suggests that psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy are equally efficacious in the short-term, but psychotherapy is superior in the long-term. For the recently stated hypothesis that pharmacotherapy is superior to psychotherapy in studies without a pill placebo condition, which implies equally including a positive expectancy effect for both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy no evidence was found.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Depression may be treated by psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy with equivalent results in the short-term and advantages for psychotherapy in the long-term. As the rates of response and remission are still limited in both treatments, further improvement of treatments is required.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy Justus-Liebig-University Giessen Ludwigstraße 76 35390 Gießen Germany.
authors.forename: Falk
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Leichsenring
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy Justus-Liebig-University Giessen Ludwigstraße 76 35390 Gießen Germany.
authors.forename: Christiane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Steinert
authors.affiliation: Technische Universität Dresden Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy 01069 Dresden Deutschland.
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hoyer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000928:Antidepressive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D006801:Humans; D008134:Long-Term Care; D011613:Psychotherapy
chemical_list: D000928:Antidepressive Agents
keywords: Blinding; Depression; Meta-analysis; Pharmacotherapy; Placebo; Psychotherapy