The British Psychological Society has a fantastic public access research hub, called BPS Research Digest ( http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com.au/), that continues to empower the visitor with an extensive array of topical and well researched pieces…here at the interpretOr, we just couldn’t go past this meta analysis on psychotherapy over drugs…extract below…
Kathryn McHugh and her colleagues identified 34 relevant peer-reviewed studies up to August 2011 involving 90,483 people, in which the participants were asked to indicate a straight preference between psychotherapy or drugs. Half the studies involved patients awaiting treatment, the others involved participants who were asked to indicate their preference if they were diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. The researchers had hoped to study preferences among patients with a diverse range of diagnoses but they were restricted by the available literature – 65 per cent studies pertained to depression with the remainder mostly involving anxiety disorders.
Overall, 75 per cent of participants stated a preference for psychotherapy over drugs. Stated differently, participants were three times as likely to state that they preferred psychological treatment rather than medication. The preference for therapy remained but was slightly lower (69 per cent) when focusing just on treatment-seeking patients, and when focusing only on studies that looked at depression (70 per cent). Desire for psychotherapy was stronger in studies that involved more women or younger participants.
the interpretOr 