Gold's findings using the end-of-treatment effect sizes from our meta-analysis of CBT for schizophrenia ^{Reference Jauhar, McKenna, Radua, Fung, Salvador and Laws1} (available at www.cbtinschizophrenia.com) are of interest and may have implications for clinical practice. In particular, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence's ² (NICE) current recommendations that at least 16 sessions of therapy should be provided now seem open to question. As noted by Taylor & Perera ^{Reference Taylor and Perera3} in their recent editorial in the BJPsych, this view is not evidence-based; instead it appears to derive from an impression gained by the Guideline Development Group that ‘the evidence for CBT is primarily driven by studies that included at least 16 planned sessions' (NICE, ² p. 240).

Our database might additionally be used to examine two important claims about CBT for schizophrenia that have surfaced in the past year, one that it has more pronounced effects in treatment-resistant patients, ^{Reference Burns, Erickson and Brenner4} and the other that it is most effective when delivered in an individually tailored, formulation-based form. ^{Reference van der Gaag, Valmaggia and Smit5} Both these claims are based on meta-analyses that included only quite limited numbers of studies (12 and 13 respectively) and so could benefit from being examined in the full data-set of available studies.