The review established the paucity of high quality evidence investigating the efficacy of psychotherapy combined with benzodiazepines for panic disorder .
Currently , there is inadequate evidence to assess the clinical effects of psychotherapy combined with benzodiazepines for patients who are diagnosed with panic disorder
BACKGROUND The efficacy of combining psychotherapy and benzodiazepines for panic disorder is unclear , despite widespread use .
OBJECTIVES To examine the efficacy of the combination compared with either treatment alone .
How study design affects outcomes in comparisons of therapy. I: Medical.
We analysed 113 reports published in 1980 in a sample of medical journals to relate features of study design to the magnitude of gains attributed to new therapies over old . Overall we rated 87 per cent of new therapies as improvements over st and ard therapies . The mean gain ( measured by the Mann-Whitney statistic ) was relatively constant across study design s , except for non-r and omized controlled trials with sequential assignment to therapy , which showed a significantly higher likelihood that a patient would do better on the innovation than on st and ard therapy ( p = 0.004 ) . R and omized controlled trials that did not use a double-blind design had a higher likelihood of showing a gain for the innovation than did double-blind trials ( p = 0.02 ) . Any evaluation of an innovation may include both bias and the true efficacy of the new therapy , therefore we may consider making adjustments for the average bias associated with a study design . When interpreting an evaluation of a new therapy , readers should consider the impact of the following average adjustments to the Mann-Whitney statistic : for trials with non-r and om sequential assignment a decrease of 0.15 , for non-double-blind r and omized controlled trials a decrease of 0.11
The review established the paucity of high quality evidence investigating the efficacy of psychotherapy combined with benzodiazepines for panic disorder .
Currently , there is inadequate evidence to assess the clinical effects of psychotherapy combined with benzodiazepines for patients who are diagnosed with panic disorder
BACKGROUND The efficacy of combining psychotherapy and benzodiazepines for panic disorder is unclear , despite widespread use .
OBJECTIVES To examine the efficacy of the combination compared with either treatment alone .