Interpreting the Findings of a Meta-analysis of Psychosocial Interventions in Bipolar Disorder

To the Editor A meta-analysis was published¹ supporting the usefulness of psychotherapy in bipolar disorder. These authors used “brief psychoeducation”(3 or less sessions), “supportive therapy,” and “treatment as usual” as control conditions and reported that experimental interventions were superior to control interventions (odds ratio [OR], 0.56; 95% CI, 0.43-0.74). Of note, statistically significant ORs more than 1 are more easily interpretable than those less than 1 that are also statistically significant. The authors’ conclusion was that all psychotherapies investigated were proved to be efficacious in the prevention of both manic and depressive episodes.