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

NCT ID: NCT00833742

Last Updated: 2025-02-18

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 77 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2002-01-31
• Study Completion Date: 2007-10-31

Brief Summary

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)

Detailed 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.

Conditions

Somatic Complaints of Multiple Types

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NON_RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: TREATMENT
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

1

ISTDP therapy was provided

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

A brief psychotherapy format

2

People referred but never seen

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy

A brief psychotherapy format

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Other Intervention Names

Short-term Psychotherapy

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Unexplained symptoms

Exclusion Criteria

• Psychosis, substance abuse, suicidality

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

Nova Scotia Health Authority

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Allan A Abbass, MD FRCPC

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Capital Health, Canada

Locations

Capital Health

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Countries

Canada

References

Abbass A. Somatization: Diagnosing it sooner through emotion-focused interviewing. J Fam Pract. 2005 Mar;54(3):231-9, 243. No abstract available.

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

PMID: 15755376 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

AAA01

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id