Makale Özeti: Change in interpersonal problems after cognitive agoraphobia and schema-focused therapy versus psychodynamic treatment

Change in interpersonal problems after cognitive agoraphobia and schema-focused therapy versus psychodynamic treatment as usual of inpatients with agoraphobia and Cluster C personality disorders

The aim was to study patients with panic disorder with agoraphobia when receiving two different treatments. Two cohorts of patients were followed through three months and assessed at follow-up one year after end of treatment. The one cohort comprised 18 patients treated with psychodynamic principles, the second comprised 24 patients treated in a cognitive agoraphobia and schema-focused therapy program.
Two samples of patients were selected from different populations on national Norwegian hospital, Modum Bad. They were treated in the manual-based( treatment as usual TAU) integrated program consisting of five weeks of symptom-focused treatment based on the cognitive model of panic and agoraphobia and then six weeks of schema-focused treatment. This program called Cognitive Therapy (CT)
The main finding in this study is that patients attending the CT condition reduced their level of interpersonal problems during the whole course more than those in the TAU condition. Follow-up tests showed that there was no differential change during treatment, but that the CT group had improved more in the follow-up period than the TAU group. Thus, it appears that the differential course of interpersonal problems was not a result of improvement in phobic anxiety during treatment.
The samples were similar on factors like sex, age, and marital status, but the CT patients appeared more seriously affected in terms of depressive and/or substance abuse disorders in addition to a higher proportion of them being on medication at pre-treatment. However, if anything, these differences should make them more, rather than less, resistant to treatment than the patients in the TAU condition.
Despite the limitations presented above, results from this quasi-experimental study may represent evidence for difference between treatment modalities in outcome for patients characterized by panic disorder with agoraphobia and Cluster C personality pathology measured as interpersonal problems. Because such patients constitute a considerable proportion of those seeking treatment, more research should be performed to explore the efficacy and effectiveness of the combined cognitive symptom and schema-focused therapy for this group of patients.

Makaleyi özetleyen: Kadriye Çelik