Effectiveness and cost effectiveness of counselling in primary care

Counsellors are prevalent in primary care settings. However, there are concerns about the clinical and cost-effectiveness of the treatments they provide, compared with alternatives such as usual care from the general practitioner, medication or other psychological therapies.

To assess the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of counselling in primary care by reviewing cost and outcome data in randomised controlled trials, controlled clinical trials and controlled patient preference trials of counselling interventions in primary care, for patients with psychological and psychosocial problems considered suitable for counselling.

The original search strategy included electronic searching of databases (including the CCDAN Register of RCTs and CCTs) along with handsearching of a specialist journal. Published and unpublished sources (clinical trials, books, dissertations, agency reports etc.) were searched, and their reference lists scanned to uncover further controlled trials. Contact was made with subject experts and CCDAN members in order to uncover further trials. For the updated review, searches were restricted to those databases judged to be high yield in the first version of the review: MEDLINE, EMBASE, PSYCLIT and CINAHL, the Cochrane Controlled Trials register and the CCDAN trials register.

All controlled trials comparing counselling in primary care with other treatments for patients with psychological and psychosocial problems considered suitable for counselling. Trials completed before the end of June 2001 were included in the review.

Data were extracted using a standardised data extraction sheet. The relevant data were entered into the Review Manager software. Trials were quality rated, using CCDAN criteria, to assess the extent to which their design and conduct were likely to have prevented systematic error. Continuous measures of outcome were combined using standardised mean differences. An overall effect size was calculated for each outcome with 95% confidence intervals. Continuous data from different measuring instruments were transformed into a standard effect size by dividing mean values by standard deviations. In view of the diversity of counselling services in primary care (the range of treatments, patients and practitioners) tests of heterogeneity were done to assess the feasibility of aggregating measures of outcome from trials. Sensitivity analyses were undertaken to test the robustness of the results.

Seven trials were included in the review. The main analyses showed significantly greater clinical effectiveness in the counselling group compared with 'usual care' in the short-term (standardised mean difference -0.28, 95% CI -0.43 to -0.13, n=772, 6 trials) but not the long-term (standardised mean difference -0.09, 95% CI -0.27 to 0.10, n=475, 4 trials). Levels of satisfaction with counselling were high. Four studies reported similar total costs associated with counselling and usual care over the long-term. However, the economic analyses were likely to be underpowered.

Counselling is associated with modest improvement in short-term outcome compared to 'usual care', but provides no additional advantages in the long-term. Patients are satisfied with counselling, and it may not be associated with increased costs.