Effectiveness of brief group cognitive behavioural therapy on improving mental health outcomes - A systematic review...

Brief Group Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), including One-day Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), has shown promising effects on reducing depression and anxiety while improving self-confidence and other mental health outcomes in a shorter time frame. The present study aimed to conduct a meta-analysis to assess the effectiveness of brief group CBT on mental health benefits.

Up to June 2024, 3 databases were used to search eligible studies. The random-effects meta-analyses at long-term follow-up assessments on depression, anxiety, self-esteem or other mental health outcomes (e.g. quality of life, etc.) were performed.

31 studies involving 6109 participants were included. Our findings showed significant positive effects of brief group CBT on depression (g = 0.31, 95% CI: 0.23 to 0.40), anxiety (g = 0.28, 95% CI: 0.18 to 0.38), self-esteem (g = 0.15, 95% CI: 0.01 to 0.30) and other related mental health outcomes (g = 0.22, 95% CI: 0.11 to 0.33) compared to controls at about 3 months follow-up. Further subgroup results showed that one-day CBT appeared to be more effective than other brief group CBTs: improving self-esteem and treating anxiety significantly better compared to controls.

These results overall confirmed that even very brief group CBT therapies have significant and relatively stable efficacy on mental health benefits, especially one-day CBT, providing a promising time-saving and low-cost approach to address immediate and large worldwide psychological needs.