• Michael M Berner, Sonja Wahl, Rigo Brueck, Katrin Frick, Robert Smolka, Monika Haug, Sabine Hoffmann, Iris Reinhard, Tagrid Leménager, Horst Gann, Anil Batra, Karl Mann, and PREDICT study group.
• Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Freiburg University Medical Center, Freiburg, Germany.
• Alcohol. Clin. Exp. Res. 2014 Apr 1; 38 (4): 1118-25.

BackgroundGoal of the presented study is to evaluate whether alcohol-dependent patients given additional individual psychotherapy after a heavy relapse during pharmacotherapy remain abstinent for longer than those who continue with pharmacotherapy alone.MethodsIn a randomized, multicenter study, 109 alcohol-dependent patients who had suffered a heavy relapse either while receiving anticraving medication or placebo were randomized into 2 groups. One group received medication, medical management, and additional individual, disorder-specific, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, while the control group received medication and medical management only. Main outcome was defined as days until first heavy relapse.ResultsFifty-four patients were randomized to the psychotherapy group, 55 to the control group. Intention-to-treat and completer analyses found no differences between groups, whereas as-treated analyses (patients who actually received psychotherapy compared with those who did not) found a significant effect of psychotherapy.ConclusionsOur data indicate that patients that are willing to attend psychotherapy benefit from receiving psychotherapy in addition to pharmacotherapy. We suggest that it may be beneficial to consider patients' preferences concerning psychotherapy at an earlier stage during treatment.Copyright © 2013 by the Research Society on Alcoholism.

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