Predictors and moderators of outcome of psychotherapeutic interventions for mental disorders in young people: Protocol for systematic reviews

Abstract

Background: Adolescence and young adulthood is a risk period for the emergence of mental disorders. There is strong evidence that psychotherapeutic interventions are effective for most mental disorders. However, very little is known about for whom different psychotherapeutic treatment modalities are effective. This large systematic review aims to address this critical gap within the literature on non-specific predictors and moderators of the outcomes of psychotherapeutic interventions among young people with mental disorders. Methods: Pubmed and PsycINFO databases were searched for randomized controlled and quasi-experimental/naturalistic clinical trials. Studies were selected according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Risk of bias of all included studies will be assessed by RoB1 and ROBINS-I risk of bias tools. The quality of predictor and moderator variables will be also assessed. A narrative synthesis will be conducted for all included studies. Discussion: This systematic review will strengthen the evidence base on effective mental health interventions for young people, being the first to explore predictors and moderators of outcome of psychotherapeutic interventions for a wide range of mental disorders in young people. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO (CRD42020166756)

Psychological Interventions for Young People With Psychotic Disorders: A Systematic Review

“…It is a part of a larger ongoing study aiming to carry out a number of systematic literature reviews on psychotherapeutic interventions among young people with mental disorders. The overall protocol for conducted systematic literature reviews is registered in PROSPERO (CRD42020166756) and described in Vousoura et al ( 22 ).…”

“…After the researchers had rated the full texts independently, a comparison of the ratings was made again, and a consensus on the studies to be included in the systematic review was reached. For a more detailed description of the study selection process see Vousoura et al ( 22 ).…”

Trans-diagnostic determinants of psychotherapeutic treatment response: The pressing need and new opportunities for a more systematic way of selecting psychotherapeutic treatment in the age of virtual service delivery

“…The process of identifying and validating moderators of treatment response in mental health should ideally begin with a comprehensive and rigorous evaluation (i.e., systematic review and meta-analysis) of studies with direct comparisons of active psychological interventions in order to identify candidate factors with the best evidence as trait-or state-(34) moderators of differential treatment response (23). While there is some progress in this regard (33,35), the conclusions of these review studies suggest that we do not yet have enough good-quality original data to inform psychotherapeutic treatment selection both because of the suboptimal investigation of moderators and the narrow range of therapeutic modalities considered in the original literature.…”

“…The process of matching psychotherapeutic treatment to patient (or, for that matter, the choice of pharmacologic agents or the choice between pharmacologic and psychotherapeutic treatment approaches) involves a complex set of considerations that have been explored by various investigators over time. However, this literature is fairly siloed (23), and there appears to be little agreed-upon language that would permit this body of literature to be readily accessed and utilized by most clinicians, administrators or healthcare policy makers.…”