Clinical study of cognitive behavior therapy combined with venlafaxine in the treatment of somatoform pain disorder

Objective To explore efficacy of cognitive behavior therapy combined with venlafaxine in the treatment of the somatoform pain disorder. Methods All 60 patients with somatoform pain disorder were randomly assigned to study groups (treated with cognitive behavior therapy combined with venlafaxine ) and control group (treated with venlafaxine alone) for 8 weeks. Each had 30 cases. Before the treatment and on the 2, 4 and 8 weekend after the treatment, Simple McGill pain scale (SF-MPQ), Hamilton Depression Scale(HAMD) and Treatment Emergent Side effect Scale(TESS) were used to evaluate the clinical efficacy(degree of pain reducing), degree of depression and adverse effect respectively. Results After 8 weeks, the efficacy in the study group (66.67%) was significantly higher than that in the control group (40.00%)(χ2=4.29,P0.05). The scores of HAMD, total and each factor of SF-MPQ in both groups were lower significantly after treatment than those before treatment. So as the scores in the study group than those in the control group after 4 and 8 weeks (t = 3.04,3.87,2.99,2.90,8.25,2.91,5.18,4.65,6.90,4.67,P 0.05). The incidence of adverse effect had no significant difference between the two groups (χ2=0.08,P0.05). Conclusions Cognitive therapy combined with venlafaxine is more effective than venlafaxine alone in the treatment of the somatoform pain disorder.