Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Corresponding author. E-mail: stephanie. Open Access. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4. Compulsive sexual behavior disorder CSBD which includes problematic pornography use PPU is a clinically relevant syndrome that has been included in the ICD as impulse control disorder.
The current preregistered systematic review aimed for identifying treatment studies on CSBD and PPU as well as treatment effects on symptom severity and behavior enactment. A quantitative synthesis based on effect sizes was done. Overall 24 studies were identified. Four of these studies were randomized controlled trials.
Treatment approaches included settings with cognitive behavior therapy components, psychotherapy methods, and psychopharmacological therapy. Especially, evidence for the efficacy of cognitive behavior therapy is present.
There is first evidence for the effectiveness of treatment approaches such as cognitive behavior therapy. However, strong conclusions on the specificity of treatments should be drawn with caution. More rigorous and systematic methodological approaches are needed for future studies. A mandatory prerequisite to consider out-of-control sexual behavior as a clinically relevant disorder is that despite being confronted with substantial negative consequences the affected person is not able to stop the critical behavior Brand et al.
Although this syndrome has been known for over a century Krafft-Ebing, , it was not until the popular scientific writings of Carnes in the s that there was a greater interest on this phenomenon Carnes, and scientific activity increased.
