Evidence Map of Prevention and Treatment Interventions for Depression in Young People

Abstract

<jats:p><jats:italic>Introduction.</jats:italic>Depression in adolescents and young people is associated with reduced social, occupational, and interpersonal functioning, increases in suicide and self-harm behaviours, and problematic substance use. Age-appropriate, evidence-based treatments are required to provide optimal care.<jats:italic>Methods.</jats:italic>“Evidence mapping” methodology was used to quantify the nature and distribution of the extant high-quality research into the prevention and treatment of depression in young people across psychological, medical, and other treatment domains.<jats:italic>Results.</jats:italic>Prevention research is dominated by cognitive-behavioral- (CBT-) based interventions. Treatment studies predominantly consist of CBT and SSRI medication trials, with few trials of other psychological interventions or complementary/alternative treatments. Quality studies on relapse prevention and treatment for persistent depression are distinctly lacking.<jats:italic>Conclusions.</jats:italic>This map demonstrates opportunities for future research to address the numerous evidence gaps for interventions to prevent or treat depression in young people, which are of interest to clinical researchers, policy makers, and funding bodies.</jats:p>

Psychosocial interventions for self-harm, suicidal ideation and suicide attempt in children and young people: What? How? Who? and Where?

“…At present, the most commonly investigated individual therapeutic approach identified in the RCTs was CBT. This mirrors other areas of mental health such as in depression 57 58…”

Evidence mapping for decision making: feasibility versus accuracy – when to abandon high sensitivity in electronic searches

“…He therefore proposes helpful machines as the ultimate solution [17], although even using electronic databases for searching the evidence may also aggravate problems with data flood rather than bringing relief [17]. For evidence mapping regarding prevention and treatment interventions for depression in young people, Callahan et al [5] used a search strategy identifying 32,733 references. After the exclusion of 28,361 citations based on title and abstract screening, 4,372 potentially relevant references remained, which were ordered and screened as full-text versions.…”

“…According to Katz et al [3], the breadth and depth of pertinent evidence should be characterised by evidence mapping. Nonetheless, facing the enormous number of 28,361 irrelevant citations screened by Callahan et al [5] we propose abandoning such targets in the case of evidence maps with the aim of creating an overview of a scientific area and thus a tolerable risk of reduced accuracy yet increased practicality and perfectly sufficient results for answering the research question. This is in accordance with the request of Sir Iain Chalmers and Paul Glasziou [22] to reduce avoidable waste in the production and reporting of research evidence to minimise "the time and resource requirement […]; burdening those preparing them with excessive requirements".…”

“…In addition, it is defined as a "less systematic but nonetheless replicable methodology that allows an understanding of the distribution of evidence" [2] within a broad medicinal or public health area [3]. Further reasons for undertaking an evidence map include a need for the prioritisation of research questions [4], as well as the identification of evidence gaps, or possibilities for future research [5], [6], [7]. Drawing evidence maps of research fields may help policy-makers to take well-informed decisions and estimate the feasibility and potential costs of a systematic review [1], [8].…”

A Qualitative Analysis of the Descriptions of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy(CBT) Tested in Clinical Trials of Depressed Young People

“…CBT is the most frequently studied psychotherapy for depression in young people [12,13]. It aims to help clients to identify, explore and modify relationships between results.…”