Delivery of cognitive-behaviour therapy for psychosis: a service user preference trial

Clinical guidelines recommend cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for people with psychosis, however, implementation is poor and not everyone wishes to engage with therapy. Understanding service user (SU) preferences for receiving such treatments is a priority for services.

To explore SU preferences and outcomes of different methods of delivering CBT for psychosis.

SUs experiencing psychosis could choose between treatment as usual (TAU); TAU plus telephone-delivered CBT with self-help, CBT recovery manual (TS); high support CBT (HS - TAU plus TS plus group sessions) or randomisation. Participants received their option of choice and were followed-up on several outcomes over 9 and 15 months.

Of 89 people recruited, three chose to be randomised and 86 expressed a treatment preference (32 chose TAU, 34 chose TS, 23 chose HS). There were few differences between those who chose therapy compared to those who chose TAU. Those who had more positive impacts from their symptoms were significantly more likely to choose TAU.

Most people had strong preferences about treatment delivery and a substantial number did not wish to receive additional therapy. These findings have to be considered when planning and allocating resources for people with psychosis.