Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) in the Emergency Department (ISTDPED)

Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Somatic Complaints of Multiple Types

Treatments: Behavioral: Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00833742

AAA01

Details and patient eligibility

About

Objective: Somatization of emotions accounts for excess Emergency department (ED) visits. Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) has methods to diagnose and manage somatization. We examined the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of ISTDP diagnostic and treatment methods used for patients with repeated ED presentations for medically unexplained physical symptoms (MUS)

Full description

Herein we report the methods and outcomes of rapidly-accessed, emotion-focused diagnostic and treatment services for patients presenting to the ED with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). Patients who were assessed and referred by ED physicians will serve as a non-randomized condition controlling for some relevant variables. Our a priori hypotheses were that assessed and treated patients would have a reduction in ED visits and self reported symptoms after this intervention and that controls would have a smaller reduction in ED visits if any.

Enrollment: 77 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Unexplained symptoms

Exclusion criteria

• Psychosis, substance abuse, suicidality

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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77 participants in 2 patient groups

1

Experimental group

Description:

ISTDP therapy was provided

Treatment:

Behavioral: Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy

2

No Intervention group

Description:

People referred but never seen