Editorial: Room for Improvement in the Treatment of Youth Depression

Psychotherapy has been studied for decades and is often used to treat youth who are depressed. How well does it work? Eckshtain et al. answered this question with a thoughtful, complex meta-analysis of 53 psychotherapy trials.1 Psychotherapy was significantly superior relative to control groups. More revealingly, treatment effects were small-to-moderate (g = .49) when compared to no-treatment, small (g = .29) when compared to a broad range of usual care interventions, and middling and statistically insignificant (g = .16) relative to placebo interventions (nearly all placebo psychotherapies merely controlling for therapist attention; only one study used pill placebo).
Source: Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Editorial Source Type: research