Cognitive therapy versus fluoxetine in the treatment of dysthymic disorder

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Abstract
We studied the effects of a fixed dose of fluoxetine (20 mg) or cognitive psycho‐therapy in a 16 week trial of patients with dysthymic disorder. More patients assigned to fluoxetine dropped out of the 16 week treatment (33%) than those assigned to cognitive therapy (9%), but this difference did not attain statistical significance. Both treatments showed improvement over baseline conditions at 8 weeks and further improvement at 16 weeks. There were no statistically significant group differences in treatment response. No follow‐up data were collected so the enduring effects of the treatments are unknown. An optimal treatment for dysthymic disorder may be combined psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for a longer period of time. Depression 4:34‐41 (1996).