Trials on therapist-delivered treatments (for illnesses or symptoms that don't have biomarkers yet) that used objective outcomes as primary endpoints

Brilliant - I will take a look at that. I could even use the same search strategy (for biopsychosocial rehab interventions) from that review to find other Cochrane reviews of biopsychosocial interventions for other conditions. Maybe there won't be that many...

 

I'm afraid there are a few more examples of trials that applied objective outcomes, but the trial design is bad for other reasons:

 

Ganslev CA, Storebø OJ, Callesen HE, Ruddy R, Søgaard U. Psychosocial interventions for conversion and dissociative disorders in adults. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2020 Jul 17;7(7):CD005331. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD005331.pub3. PMID: 32681745; PMCID: PMC7388313.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32681745/

Haven't read this meta-analysis yet, and actually don't think it fulfills the criteria of this thread's title?

It seems in the abstract they forget to say how they measured reduction in physical signs (primary endpoint) but at least they honestly acknowledged some weaknesses of the trials -- even in their conclusion.

Abstract quoted here.

Authors' conclusions: The results of the meta-analysis and reporting of single studies suggest there is lack of evidence regarding the effects of any psychosocial intervention on conversion and dissociative disorders in adults. It is not possible to draw any conclusions about potential benefits or harms from the included studies.

From the abstract: "None of the studies reported results on adverse effects. In the studies reporting on level of functioning and quality of life at end of treatment the effects ranged from small to no effect."

Forum thread here.

 

What's even more amazing is that it's literally the "effectiveness" of "psychosocial interventions" on those conditions that is cited as evidence for why they are psychosocial, e.g. PACE is commonly cited as having "proved" that ME is psychological since a psychosocial intervention is effective. It's literally the main basis for the concept of conversion disorder, that having been shown that it's effective to treat them psychosocially, it means that they are.

But in Freudland requirements are optional, rules are meant to be broken and nothing matters.

 

Not a trial but perhaps useful for a confrontation both with the negligence of the issue with using subjective outcomes in (unblindable) therapist-delivered treatments and with the feasibility of using objective outcomes: