Why is this review important?
Panic disorder is common and harmful to mental well-being. Psychological therapies and medication (usually antidepressants or benzodiazepines) are effective against panic disorder. However, there are no up-to-date reviews on the superiority and acceptability of these two forms of treatment, and such a review is necessary to improve treatment planning for this disorder.
Who will be interested in this review?
Adult patients, professionals working in mental health services, and general practitioners.
What questions does this review aim to answer?
The present review aims to answer the following questions:
• Are psychological therapies more effective than antidepressants or benzodiazepines?
• Are psychological therapies more acceptable than antidepressants or benzodiazepines?
Which studies were included in the review?
We searched databases to find all trials published between 1950 and September 2015 comparing psychological therapies with antidepressants or benzodiazepines for the treatment of panic disorder with or without agoraphobia in adults. To be included in the review, the studies had to be randomised controlled trials and had to include people with a clear diagnosis of panic disorder with or without agoraphobia.
We included 16 studies with a total of 966 participants in the review. We rated the overall quality of the evidence from these studies as very low to moderate.
What does the evidence from the review tell us?
The superiority or inferiority of psychological therapies over drugs remains unclear with regard to treatment effectiveness and acceptability.
None of the studies reported information regarding long-term effectiveness and quality of life.
What should happen next?
The review authors recommend that future research should use less biased psychological therapies, evaluate long-term outcomes, and report information related to the risk of study bias.
The evidence in this review was often imprecise. The superiority of either therapy over the other is uncertain due to the low and very low quality of the evidence with regard to short-term efficacy and treatment acceptability, and no data were available regarding adverse effects.
The sensitivity analysis and investigation of the sources of heterogeneity indicated three possible influential factors: quality control of psychological therapies, the length of intervention, and the individual modality of psychological therapies.
Future studies should examine the long-term effects after intervention or treatment continuation and should provide information on risk of bias, especially with regard to selection and reporting biases.
Panic disorder is common and deleterious to mental well-being. Psychological therapies and pharmacological interventions are both used as treatments for panic disorder with and without agoraphobia. However, there are no up-to-date reviews on the comparative efficacy and acceptability of the two treatment modalities, and such a review is necessary for improved treatment planning for this disorder.
To assess the efficacy and acceptability of psychological therapies versus pharmacological interventions for panic disorder, with or without agoraphobia, in adults.
We searched the Cochrane Common Mental Disorders Group Specialised Register on 11 September 2015. This register contains reports of relevant randomised controlled trials from the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE (1950 to present), Embase (1974 to present), and PsycINFO (1967 to present). We cross-checked reference lists of relevant papers and systematic reviews. We did not apply any restrictions on date, language, or publication status.
We included all randomised controlled trials comparing psychological therapies with pharmacological interventions for panic disorder with or without agoraphobia as diagnosed by operationalised criteria in adults.
Two review authors independently extracted data and resolved any disagreements in consultation with a third review author. For dichotomous data, we calculated risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). We analysed continuous data using standardised mean differences (with 95% CI). We used the random-effects model throughout.
We included 16 studies with a total of 966 participants in the present review. Eight of the studies were conducted in Europe, four in the USA, two in the Middle East, and one in Southeast Asia.
None of the studies reported long-term remission/response (long term being six months or longer from treatment commencement).
There was no evidence of a difference between psychological therapies and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in terms of short-term remission (RR 0.85, 95% CI 0.62 to 1.17; 6 studies; 334 participants) or short-term response (RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.51 to 1.86; 5 studies; 277 participants) (very low-quality evidence), and no evidence of a difference between psychological therapies and SSRIs in treatment acceptability as measured using dropouts for any reason (RR 1.33, 95% CI 0.80 to 2.22; 6 studies; 334 participants; low-quality evidence).
There was no evidence of a difference between psychological therapies and tricyclic antidepressants in terms of short-term remission (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.62 to 1.09; 3 studies; 229 participants), short-term response (RR 0.75, 95% CI 0.51 to 1.10; 4 studies; 270 participants), or dropouts for any reason (RR 0.83, 95% CI 0.53 to 1.30; 5 studies; 430 participants) (low-quality evidence).
There was no evidence of a difference between psychological therapies and other antidepressants in terms of short-term remission (RR 0.90, 95% CI 0.48 to 1.67; 3 studies; 135 participants; very low-quality evidence) and evidence that psychological therapies did not significantly increase or decrease the short-term response over other antidepressants (RR 0.96, 95% CI 0.67 to 1.37; 3 studies; 128 participants) or dropouts for any reason (RR 1.55, 95% CI 0.91 to 2.65; 3 studies; 180 participants) (low-quality evidence).
There was no evidence of a difference between psychological therapies and benzodiazepines in terms of short-term remission (RR 1.08, 95% CI 0.70 to 1.65; 3 studies; 95 participants), short-term response (RR 1.58, 95% CI 0.70 to 3.58; 2 studies; 69 participants), or dropouts for any reason (RR 1.12, 95% CI 0.54 to 2.36; 3 studies; 116 participants) (very low-quality evidence).
There was no evidence of a difference between psychological therapies and either antidepressant alone or antidepressants plus benzodiazepines in terms of short-term remission (RR 0.86, 95% CI 0.71 to 1.05; 11 studies; 663 participants) and short-term response (RR 0.95, 95% CI 0.76 to 1.18; 12 studies; 800 participants) (low-quality evidence), and there was no evidence of a difference between psychological therapies and either antidepressants alone or antidepressants plus benzodiazepines in terms of treatment acceptability as measured by dropouts for any reason (RR 1.08, 95% CI 0.77 to 1.51; 13 studies; 909 participants; very low-quality evidence). The risk of selection bias and reporting bias was largely unclear. Preplanned subgroup and sensitivity analyses limited to trials with longer-term, quality-controlled, or individual psychological therapies suggested that antidepressants might be more effective than psychological therapies for some outcomes.
There were no data to contribute to a comparison between psychological therapies and serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) and subsequent adverse effects.