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Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Who’s to blame for inaccurate media coverage of study of therapy for persons with schizophrenia?

By James C. Coyne
jcoynester blog
Originally published March 7, 2014
I’m in competition with literally hundreds of stories every day, political and economic stories of compelling interest…we have to almost overstate, we have to come as close as we came within the boundaries of truth to dramatic, compelling statement. A weak statement will go no place.”                                 Journalist interviewed for JA Winsten, Science and Media: The Boundaries of Truth
Hyped, misleading media coverage of a study in Lancet of CBT for persons with unmedicated schizophrenia left lots of clinicians, policymakers, and especially persons with schizophrenia and their family members confused.

Did the study actually showed that psychotherapy was as effective as medication for schizophrenia? NO!

Did the study demonstrate that persons with schizophrenia could actually forgo medication with nasty side effects and modest effectiveness and just get on with their life with the help of CBT? NO!

The entire blog post is here.