Effectiveness of time-limited psychotherapy for minor psychiatric disorders: randomised controlled trial evaluating immediate v. long-term effects.

Background: Psychotherapy research rarely has studied outcome in the longer term.

Aims: To evaluate the effectiveness of brief group dynamic psychotherapy (BGDP) intervention in patients with minor psychiatric disorders compared with the usual clinical management shortly after treatment termination and to investigate whether intervention would show a differential effect at 2-year follow-up.

Method: Patients were allocated randomly to an experimental or control group. The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) was used as a primary outcome measure.

Results: Based on improvement in the GHQ, at termination of treatment the BGDP group showed a significant improvement in 23 out of 42 (54.8%) compared with 11 out of 41 (26.8%) in the clinical management group. The difference in the total improvement rate is 28% (95% C18-48) (chi(2)=6.7; d.f.=1; P=0.009). In contrast, no differential follow-up effects were found between the BGDP and clinical management groups.

Conclusions: Psychotherapy appears to have beneficial effects at termination of treatment but the changes attained were not stable.