Two–year follow–up of cognitive–behavioral therapy and supportive counseling in the treatment of persistent symptoms in chronic schizophrenia.

The article reports the 2-year follow-up of patients suffering persistent symptoms of schizophrenia who entered a single blind randomized controlled trial. Patients were randomly allocated to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) plus routine care (RC), supportive counseling (SC) plus RC, or RC alone. Treatment took place over 3 months, and follow-up was made 12 and 24 months after treatment finished. Sixty-one patients were available to the 2-year follow-up and assessed for positive and negative symptoms and clinical improvement; all of the 87 patients who entered the trial were assessed for relapse over the follow-up period. On all measures, patients who received RC alone did significantly worse at 2 years. There were no significant differences at 2 years between the CBT and SC groups.