Treatment of anxiety disorders in older adults: a meta-analytic comparison of behavioral and pharmacological interventions

To reduce the morbidity attributable to anxiety disorders in old age and to improve the quality of care, data on the effectiveness of current treatments are needed.

A comparative meta-analysis of 32 studies of treatments focused on anxiety disorders in older adults (N = 2,484) receiving behavioral interventions or pharmacotherapy was conducted.

In separate analyses of the effects of interventions, stronger improvements of anxiety symptoms are found in pharmacotherapy than in behavioral interventions (d = 1.76 versus d = 0.81 SD units). This difference disappears when computing effect sizes that control for nonspecific change in the control group (d = 0.80 and d = 0.83 SD units) because effect sizes are greater in pill-placebo controls of pharmacological studies than in control groups (e.g., wait list) of behavioral interventions (d = 1.06 versus d = 0.10 SD units). Both interventions also yield moderate reductions in depressive symptoms (d = 0.59 versus d = 0.61 SD units), and dropout rates were comparable.

Available pharmacotherapy and behavioral interventions are reasonably effective. Given the higher average treatment effects of pharmacological interventions, pharmacotherapy may be the first choice of treatment as long as medical conditions and patients' preferences do not preclude this form of treatment.