Effectiveness of Psychotherapy in Adult ADHD: What Do Patients Think? Results of the COMPAS Study.

OBJECTIVE In the multicenter study Comparison of Methylphenidate and Psychotherapy in Adult ADHD (COMPAS), the efficacy of treatments has been primarily evaluated by observer-rated symptom change. Here, we additionally analyzed the patients' subjective evaluation of therapy effects. METHOD COMPAS compared ADHD-specific group therapy with unspecific clinical management with/without concomitant pharmacotherapy in a four-armed design. Evaluation through the patients' retrospective perspective was performed after 1 year (post-treatment) and after another 1.5 years (follow-up). RESULTS In respect to patients' subjective ratings, ADHD-specific group psychotherapy outperformed unspecific management post-treatment ( z = 4.88, p < .0001) and at follow-up ( z = 2.90, p = .004). Rank correlations with rater-based symptom change were small to moderate (post-treatment: rs = 0.28, follow-up: rs = 0.16). CONCLUSION Therapy evaluation based on the patients' perspective supports the concept of ADHD-specific group psychotherapy as a potentially useful therapy option in ADHD.