Reporting practices in psilocybin-assisted therapy trials for depression: A descriptive review and temporal overview
Journal of Psychedelic Studies July 13, 2026 Nils Hörnqvist
A review of psilocybin-assisted therapy trials for major depressive disorder and treatment-resistant depression found that reporting practices are inconsistent in several key areas. Overrepresentation of participants with prior psychedelic experiences (22.4% of participants) was noted. Trials often failed to report blinding success for therapists (10%) and participants (16.7%), therapist fidelity (6.7%), and expectancy (6.7%). Preparatory and integration sessions were reported as hours rather than number of sessions. Some standardization was observed, such as increased use of the MADRS depression scale and consistent dosing (25 mg for intervention, 1 and 0 mg for control groups). The review calls for future research to better assess blinding, therapist fidelity, expectancy, and to include more psychedelic-naïve participants.