Transdiagnostic psychological interventions for emotional disorders: A comprehensive meta-analysis

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Previous meta-analyses exist for transdiagnostic interventions for depression and anxiety.
• A gap remains in recent comprehensive reviews covering diverse transdiagnostic interventions, delivery formats, and mixed emotional disorder samples.

Purpose of the Study:

• To synthesize evidence on the effectiveness of transdiagnostic interventions for depression and anxiety symptoms.
• To include all types of transdiagnostic interventions across various delivery formats and mixed patient samples.

Main Methods:

• Conducted random-effects meta-analyses of 94 randomized trials (108 comparisons) from the Metapsy project (searches up to January 1, 2024).
• Included 12,443 adult patients diagnosed with anxiety and/or unipolar depressive disorders or scoring above a threshold on self-report scales.
• Analyzed effects on depression and anxiety symptomatology at post-treatment, performing sensitivity and publication bias analyses.

Main Results:

• The overall effect size for transdiagnostic interventions was g = 0.59 (95% CI 0.50-0.68) for depression and anxiety symptoms.
• High heterogeneity (I² = 78.88%) was observed, with comparable results across sensitivity analyses.
• Interventions showed larger effects on anxiety symptoms in studies with exclusively anxiety disorder samples (g = 0.87).
• A significantly higher risk of study dropout was noted in intervention groups compared to control groups.

Conclusions:

• Transdiagnostic interventions demonstrate probable effectiveness for adult depression and/or anxiety symptoms at post-treatment.
• The findings support the utility of transdiagnostic approaches, while acknowledging the increased dropout risk.