Two-year follow-up of cognitive--behavioral therapy and supportive counseling in the treatment of persistent symptoms in chronic schizophrenia.
The article reports the 2-year follow-up of patients suffering persistent symptoms of schizophrenia who entered a single blind randomized controlled trial. Patients were randomly allocated to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) plus routine care (RC), supportive counseling (SC) plus RC, or RC alone. Treatment took place over 3 months, and follow-up was made 12 and 24 months after treatment finished. Sixty-one patients were available to the 2-year follow-up and assessed for positive and negative symptoms and clinical improvement; all of the 87 patients who entered the trial were assessed for relapse over the follow-up period. On all measures, patients who received RC alone did significantly worse at 2 years. There were no significant differences at 2 years between the CBT and SC groups.
We found insufficient evidence to recommend the use of acupuncture for people with schizophrenia. The numbers of participants and the blinding of acupuncture were both inadequate, and more comprehensive and better designed studies are needed to determine the effects of acupuncture for schizophrenia.