A systematic review and meta-analysis of cognitive behavioral and psychodynamic therapy for depression in Parkinson’s disease patients

Numerous practice guidelines have recommended cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychodynamic therapy as a treatment of choice for depression in Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, no recent meta-analysis has examined the effects of brief psychotherapy (which includes both CBT and psychodynamic therapy) for adult depression in PD. We decided to conduct such a systematic review and meta-analysis. We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) examining the effects of brief psychotherapy compared with control groups, other support nursing, or pharmacotherapy. The quality of included studies was strictly evaluated. Twelve studies including 766 patients met all inclusion criteria. The result showed that brief psychotherapy could evidently improve the HAMD (p < 0.00001) and Moca scale (p = 0.006). There was no statistical significance in PDQ-39 scale (p = 0.31). In the subgroup analysis by types of brief psychotherapy, the efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy was better than CBT (SMD = −2.02 vs SMD = −0.90) for the outcome measure according to HAMD scale. Meanwhile, we found brief psychotherapy in China was more effective than in US (SMD = −1.54 vs SMD = −1.23), and in low quality studies was more efficacious than in high quality studies (SMD = −1.50 vs SMD = −1.33). Time of brief psychotherapy treatment above 6 weeks was superior to studies with less than 6 weeks treatment. We found brief psychotherapy is probable effective in the management of depression in PD patients. But one reason to undermine the validity of findings is high clinical heterogeneity and low methodological quality of the included trials.