Effectiveness of individual cognitive behavioral therapy applied to psychotic symptoms: 2. Randomized controlled trials

Abstract

In this work, we present a review of all the randomised controlled trials carried out over the last years in which the effectiveness of the cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) on psycotic symptoms is analysed. The results show that CBT reduces the severity of psycotic symptoms if compared to the controlled groups without treatment. However, it is not clearly superior to other psychological strategies not specifically designed for positive symptoms. It can be concluded that this type of interventions have no effect on the social functioning and the negative symptoms of psychotic patients. Finally, the methodological problems of these studies are analysed.