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Interpersonal psychotherapy may be effective for anxiety, eating disorders

Interpersonal psychotherapy was effective for acute treatment of depression and may also be effective for eating disorders and anxiety disorders, according to recent findings.

“Since [interpersonal psychotherapy] appeared to be effective in the treatment of depression, researchers and clinicians started to use it for other mental health problems, including eating disorders, substance use disorders, anxiety disorders and several others,” Pim Cuijpers, PhD, of VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and colleagues wrote. “Few systematic reviews examined the effects of [interpersonal psychotherapy]. “

To assess efficacy of interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) for mental disorders other than depression, researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 90 randomized trials among 11,434 participants.

For acute-phase depression, IPT had moderate-to-large effects compared with control groups (Hedges g = 0.6; 95% CI, 0.45-0.75). There were no significant differences between IPT and other therapies or pharmacotherapy.

IPT for subthreshold depression significantly prevented onset of major depression and maintenance IPT significantly reduced depressive relapse, according to researchers.

IPT was significantly effective for eating disorders, though had slightly smaller effects than cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in the acute treatment phase.

For anxiety, IPT had large effects compared with control groups and researchers found no evidence indicating IPT was less effective than CBT.

The majority of included studies had risk of bias as defined by the Cochrane Collaboration, though there was little indication the presence of bias influenced outcome, according to researchers.

“IPT is one of the best-examined treatments in mental health problems, and it is effective in depression and possibly in other disorders, such as eating and anxiety disorders,” the researchers wrote. “It is important to have more than one treatment option for patients, since no treatment works for everyone, and IPT, with its focus on salient relational and interpersonal experiences, provides an important alternative to pharmacotherapy or CBT. IPT has the potential to be used more broadly for endemic mental health problems, as a preventative treatment, and to address the concomitant interpersonal stressors associated with the onset or worsening of disorders.” – by Amanda Oldt

Disclosure: Cuijpers reports receiving royalties from Atheneum Publishers, HB Publishers, and Servier; speaking fees from the NVGRT, the University of Trier, Vanderbilt University, and the VGCt; and grant support from the European Commission, the NutsOhra Foundation, and ZonMw. Please see the full study for a list of all authors’ relevant financial disclosures.