Effects of psychotherapy for anxiety in children and adolescents: A meta-analytic review

Evidence-based psychotherapy in children and adolescents: advances, methodological and conceptual limitations, and perspectives

“…This is at least partially due to the low methodological quality of the majority of these studies. Therefore, the conclusions of recent meta-analyses and reviews of treatment efficacy for given disorders were often preliminary or inconclusive, because the number of included RCTs was generally small, often with low statistical power and a high or even unknown risk for biased sample selection and randomization procedures [10,13,14]. In addition, most of these studies suffered from selective outcome reporting, and about one-third of the published studies included a follow-up assessment with a mean time-lag of 5 months after therapy only [8,14].…”

“…therapeutic alliance and self-efficacy expectations) [24,25]. For example, few treatments have been adapted to the special needs of preschool children [10]. Assessing the moderating effect of age may have important implications towards a differential indication of these interventions and may emphasize the need to tailor therapies to the developmental stage of participants.…”

“…These results have coalesced into evidence-based treatments for children and adolescents applicable to several diagnostic categories including anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, eating disorders, autism spectrum disorders, substance abuse, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders [8,9]. The majority of these treatments under study in this age group can be described by the umbrella term 'cognitive-behavioural therapy' (CBT); they include both programmes designed specifically for children and adolescents and generic approaches for all age groups such as CBT for anxiety disorders [8,10]. With the number of evidence-based treatments expanding, research has started to draw on the relative efficacy of treatments for specific subtypes of disorders [10] and different intervention techniques for the same disorder [11].…”

“…The majority of these treatments under study in this age group can be described by the umbrella term 'cognitive-behavioural therapy' (CBT); they include both programmes designed specifically for children and adolescents and generic approaches for all age groups such as CBT for anxiety disorders [8,10]. With the number of evidence-based treatments expanding, research has started to draw on the relative efficacy of treatments for specific subtypes of disorders [10] and different intervention techniques for the same disorder [11]. For example, the review by Leenarts et al [11] in this issue reported that traumafocused CBT techniques revealed better empirical support for the treatment of children exposed to maltreatment than both non-trauma focused methods and trauma-specific treatments for children and adolescents with comorbid disorders.…”

Pediatric anxiety disorders: from neuroscience to evidence-based clinical practice

“…CBT is the approach with stronger evidence of effectiveness as compared to waiting lists or attention control interventions for both OCD [163][164][165] and non-OCD pediatric anxiety disorders. [164][165][166] The overall effect size of CBT for pediatric anxiety in a meta-analysis involving 48 studies (n=3,740) was 0.66 (compared to passive control 0.77 and to active control 0.39; both significant), demonstrating a key role of non-specific factors.…”