Outpatient Psychotherapy Improves Symptoms and Reduces Health Care Costs in Regularly and Prematurely Terminated Therapies.

Background: In view of a shortage of health care costs, monetary aspects of psychotherapy become increasingly relevant. The present study examined the pre-post reduction of impairment and direct health care costs depending on therapy termination (regularly terminated, dropout with an unproblematic reason, and dropout with a quality-relevant reason) and the association of symptom and cost reduction. Methods: In a naturalistic longitudinal study, we examined a disorder heterogeneous sample of N = 584 outpatients who were either treated with cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, or psychoanalytic therapy. Depression, anxiety, stress, and somatization were assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ). Annual amounts of inpatient costs, outpatient costs, medication costs, days of hospitalization, work disability days, utilization of psychotherapy, and utilization of pharmacotherapy 1 year before therapy and 1 year after therapy were provided by health care insurances. Symptom and cost reduction were analyzed using t-tests. Associations between symptom and cost reduction were examined using partial correlations and hierarchical linear models. Results: Patients who terminated therapy regularly showed the largest symptom reduction (d = 0.981-1.22). Patients who dropped out due to an unproblematic reason and patients who terminated early due to a quality-relevant reason showed significant but small effects of symptom reductions (e.g., depression: d = 0.429 vs. d = 0.366). For patients with a regular end and those dropping out due to a quality-relevant reason, we observed a significant reduction of work disability (diff in % of pre-test value = 56.3 vs. 42.9%) and hospitalization days (52.8 vs. 35.0%). Annual inpatient costs decreased in the group with a regular therapy end (31.5%). Furthermore, reduction of symptoms on the one side and reduction of work disability days and psychotherapy utilization on the other side were significant correlated (r = 0.091-0.135). Conclusion: Health care costs and symptoms were reduced in each of the three groups. The average symptom and cost reduction of patients with a quality-relevant dropout suggested that not each dropout might be seen as therapy failure.

Preliminary Evidence for Training-Induced Changes of Morphology and Phantom Limb Pain.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether a special prosthetic training in phantom limb pain patients aimed at increasing the functional use of the prosthesis leads to neural morphological plasticity of brain structures and a reduction in phantom limb pain. For chronic pain disorders, it was shown that morphological alterations due to pain might become at least partially reversed by pain therapies. Phantom limb pain is a chronic pain disorder that is frequently followed by neural plasticity of anatomical brain structures. In our study, 10 patients with amputation of the upper limb participated in a two-week training with a myoelectric prosthesis with somatosensory feedback. Grip strength was fed back with electrocutaneous stimulus patterns applied to the stump. Phantom limb pain was assessed before and after the two-week training. Similarly, two T1 weighted MRI scans were conducted for longitudinal thickness analyses of cortical brain structures. As result of this treatment, patients experienced a reduction in phantom limb pain and a gain in prosthesis functionality. Furthermore, we found a change of cortical thickness in small brain areas in the visual stream and the post-central gyrus ipsilateral to the amputation indicating morphological alterations in brain areas involved in vision and pain processing.

[Outpatient Psychotherapy Under Naturalistic Conditions: A Selective Review of Results from German Speaking Countries]. / Ambulante Psychotherapie unter Routinebedingungen: Forschungsbefunde aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum.

There is a growing body of literature recognizing the importance of outpatient psychotherapy. Several studies investigated the efficacy of outpatient psychotherapy and aspects of the health care system under natural conditions. This paper gives an overview of studies from German speaking countries (TRANS-OP-, TK-, PAP-S- and QS-PSY-BAY-study).The results of the different studies indicate both, positive outcome of the therapies (e. g., reduction of symptoms with an average ES of 1,03; improvement of symptoms despite premature termination) as well as an economic benefit (end of treatment depending on treatment outcome and not limited by therapy sessions; extensions of psychotherapy only if patient is highly impaired and therapeutic alliance is positive; high reduction of supply costs and sick leave). However, the low health care density in rural areas and the waiting periods before starting therapy are indicators of structural problems of the health care system with respect to outpatient psychotherapy.The efficacy of outpatient psychotherapies under natural conditions is sufficiently supported. Future studies should investigate structural aspects of the health care system, for example by focussing on the establishment of inter-sectoral connections between different professional groups and a reduction of bureaucratic actions.