Brief psychological treatments for emotional disorders in Primary and Specialized Care: A randomized controlled trial.

Brief transdiagnostic psychotherapies are a possible treatment for emotional disorders. We aimed to determine their efficacy on mild/moderate emotional disorders compared with treatment as usual (TAU) based on pharmacological interventions. This study was a single-blinded randomized controlled trial with parallel design of three groups. Patients ( = 102) were assigned to brief individual psychotherapy ( = 34), brief group psychotherapy ( = 34) or TAU ( = 34). Participants were assessed before and after the interventions with the following measures: PHQ-15, PHQ-9, PHQ-PD, GAD-7, STAI, BDI-II, BSI-18, and SCID. We conducted per protocol and intention-to-treat analyses. Brief psychotherapies were more effective than TAU for the reduction of emotional disorders symptoms and diagnoses with moderate/high effect sizes. TAU was only effective in reducing depressive symptoms. Brief transdiagnostic psychotherapies might be the treatment of choice for mild/moderate emotional disorders and they seem suitable to be implemented within health care systems.