Evaluation of effect of brief-intensive cognitive behavior therapy on symptoms severity in relation with catastrophic cognition in patients with panic disorder: a randomized controlled trial.

INTRODUCTION: Due to a dearth of evidence, we examined the effectiveness of brief-intensive CBT on symptom severity and catastrophic cognition in patients with panic disorder (PD).

MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this randomized controlled trial, 155 patients were assigned to either the experimental group (2 successive days of brief-intensive CBT-3 h per day) or the control group (regular pharmacotherapy only). After excluding ineligible participants, 20 patients in the brief intensive CBT group and 18 patients in the control group completed the study and were included in the final analysis. The primary outcome was symptom severity, and the secondary outcome was catastrophic cognition, assessed by the Panic Disorder Severity Scale (PDSS) for symptoms severity and the Agoraphobic Cognition Scale (ACS) for cognitive assessment, respectively.

RESULTS: The study showed that after one month of treatment, the PDSS (1.70 vs. 4.78; p = 0.0172) in the brief-intensive CBT group was significantly lower compared to the control group in contrast with the ACS (5.10 vs. 5.44; p = 0.8533). The mean score of PDSS and ACS significantly decreased from 21.60 to 1.7 (p < 0.0001) and from 22.55 to 5.10 (p < 0.0001) in the brief CBT group and from 19.44 to 4.78 (p < 0.0001) and 20.00 to 5.44 (p < 0.0001) in the control group, respectively. After treatment, the mean scores of PDSS and ACS significantly decreased in the brief intensive CBT and control groups. Both higher ACS and lower education levels contributed to higher PDSS in the brief intensive CBT group. However, only the PDSS correlated to the ACS in the control group.

CONCLUSIONS: The study showed that brief-intensive CBT is an effective technique for reducing the severity of symptoms among PD patients. But, it was not effective to improve the cognitive level in PD patients at one month.