In 2020, seventy-five percent of the american population considers mental health to be as crucial as physical health, yet the access to evidence-based therapies remains a major problem for many.
Even when some can overcome the hurdles in consulting a therapist and expressing their emotional difficulties, receiving high-quality treatment is far from reach. Not all therapies are curated from controlled trials or multiple experiments, 80 percent of psychotherapies that are accessible today are not evidence-based.
Evidence-based therapies, or EBTs, are created through rigorous tests taken in randomized controlled trials or a series of case studies that have clinically proven the efficacy and superiority of Evidence-Based therapies(EBTs) over other therapeutic models. Examples of EBTs include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). These empirically supported treatments provide the best opportunity to help most patients with behavioral health concerns like emotional vulnerability, harmful urges, mindlessness, and dysfunctional behaviors. Yet, many healthcare professionals are not practicing EBTs even today; instead, they opt for simpler and short-term therapies that are not backed by evidence.
What is Evidence-Based Therapy?
The term "evidence-based" was first discovered in 1987, when David M. Eddy in his workshop on designing clinical practice guidelines in medicine, first used it. However, the term was first formally defined by Sackett, the father of the clinical decision-making approach movement. He stated that evidence-based treatment is the "conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about individual patients' care." Evidence-based therapy emphasizes integrating the best-available tools with clinical expertise after making a clear analysis of the patient's culture, individual characteristics, and personal preferences. It has its roots in shreds of evidence that refer to meta-analyses, randomized controlled trials, effective experiments, and process studies, along with information yielded from single-case reports, systematic case studies, qualitative and ethnographic research, and clinical documentation. Evidence-based psychotherapies encompass both scientific and local evidence, such as patient diagnosis data, situational information, and unique characteristics of each patient such as personal problems, strengths, and readiness to focus on goals. All of these aspects influence the approach and effectiveness of any evidence-based psychotherapy.
Applying evidence-based principles ensures the use of the best existing tool as an initial framework, while simultaneously providing flexibility to individualize treatment, thereby catering to different individuals’ needs.
The Goals and Benefits of Evidence-Based Therapy
Two main goals behind the evidence-based practice are:
- Access to high-quality treatment.
- Increased accountability, mindfulness, and self-control.
Research has shown that Evidence-Based Therapy is indeed economical, and because of it's less time-consuming nature, thousands have resorted to them.
This approach involves tracking not only the individual’s progress but also the therapist's success rate and ensuring that they continue to prove their effectiveness and establish its efficacy in the world of psychotherapy.
Conclusion
Evidence-Based Therapy, or it's a practice as a kind of psychotherapy backed by research that has proven effective clinically rather than solely based on normative theories. Accessibility to these treatments will help improve the well being of those struggling with mental health issues that have been successfully managed through EBTs. At Swasth, we have developed an Evidence-Based Behavioral Health Platform that comprises modality specific mobile apps like CBT Companion, DBT Coach and ACT Coach for augmenting the experience of evidence-based therapy sessions. These integrate seamlessly with a Clinician platform that enables Clinicians to engage better with their clients.
