Welche Merkmale sagen die Behandlungsdauer und das Behandlungsergebnis von psychotherapeutischer Krankenhausbehandlung voraus?

OBJECTIVE: Several studies document the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic hospital treatment in German speaking countries, although results show a considerable heterogeneity.

METHODS: Based on data from a comprehensive meta-analysis, we investigated the impact of potential study-level predictors on average treatment duration and average symptom severity at discharge using meta-regression.

RESULTS: Selected predictors explain 55 and 78 percent of between-study variance of mean treatment duration and mean symptom severity at discharge, respectively. Samples of younger patients, samples including more patients with personality disorders, samples treated in specialist centers and samples from older investigations showed longer average treatment durations. Studies in patient populations with less severe symptoms at intake and a lower proportion of personality disorders showed lower impairment at discharge. We found a statistically significant positive association between severity of symptoms at discharge and treatment duration.

CONCLUSION: Regarding the higher symptom load at discharge in patients with higher impairment at intake and personality disorders, treatment concepts for these groups require improvement, for example through flexible treatment durations.