A systematic review 1 including 11 RCTs with a total of 1016 subjects was abstracted in DARE. The included studies involved patients with a wide variety of mental disorders. The mean duration of included long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (PDP) interventions was 95 weeks and the mean number of sessions was 151. Control treatments included cognitive-behavioural therapy, cognitive-analytic therapy, dialectical-behavioural therapy, family therapy, supportive therapy, short-term psychodynamic therapy and psychiatric treatment as usual. Eight controlled studies compared long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (PDP) with other forms of psychotherapy. Long-term PDP was associated with statistically significant improvements in overall effectiveness (d 0.96 vs. 0.47, rp 0.60, 95% CI 0.25, 0.81), target problems (d 1.16 vs. 0.61, rp 0.49, 95% CI 0.08, 0.76) and personality functioning (d 0.90 vs. 0.19, rp 0.76, 95% CI 0.33, 0.93) than other forms of psychotherapy.
Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by inconsistency (differences in population and control treatments).
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