Psychological treatment of depression: A meta-analytic database of randomized studies

Abstract

Background: A large number of randomized controlled studies have clearly demonstrated that psychological interventions are effective in the treatment of depression. The number of studies in this area is increasing rapidly. In this paper, we present a database of controlled and comparative outcome studies on psychological treatments of depression, based on a series of meta-analyses published by our group. The database can be accessed freely through the Internet.

The Effects of Blinding on the Outcomes of Psychotherapy and Pharmacotherapy for Adult Depression: a Meta-Analysis

“…Earlier meta-analyses of direct comparisons between psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy have not examined the effects of the presence of a placebo condition on the differential effects of the two treatments [13,14].…”

“…1 presents a flowchart describing the inclusion process. These 35 studies were all included in our larger meta-analysis of direct comparisons of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for depression and anxiety disorders [14] (except one study that was published after the deadline for inclusion in that meta-analysis) [42].…”

“…Our earlier meta-analyses of studies directly comparing psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy typically show that there are no significant differences between the two [13,14]. If blinding indeed affects outcome, one could expect a difference between studies with and without a placebo control condition.…”

The effects of psychological treatment of maternal depression on children and parental functioning: a meta-analysis

“…For the identification and selection of studies, we used a database of papers on the psychological treatment of depression that has been described in detail elsewhere [12] and used in a series of earlier published meta-analyses (www.evidencebasedpsychotherapies.org). This database has been continuously updated through comprehensive literature searches (from 1966 to January 2013).…”

Psychological treatment of depression in primary care: a meta-analysis

“…This database, how it was developed, and the methods used have been described in detail elsewhere. 25 Key materials, overviews of the goals and mission, and an overview of all other published meta-analyses that have used this database can be downloaded from the website for this project (www.psychotherapyrcts.org). In brief, the database was developed through a comprehensive literature search (from 1966 to December 2007) in which 8861 abstracts in PubMed (1403 abstracts), PsycINFO (2097), EMBASE (2207), and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (2204) were examined.…”