Evidence map›Paper›PMID 23737423›Full record

ArticleWorld psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA)2013

The efficacy of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy in treating depressive and anxiety disorders: a meta-analysis of direct comparisons.

Pim Cuijpers, Marit Sijbrandij, Sander L Koole, Gerhard Andersson, Aartjan T Beekman, Charles F Reynolds

Registry-linked trialOpen access · bronzeAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07422545 (Development and Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Nature-Based Therapies in the Treatment of Anxiety and Depression Symptoms), which is not on this map. Cited by 181 papers, 14 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
181citing papers in PubMed, 14 pooled it
30.7field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

NCT07422545 nacompletednot on this mapstarted 2025, after this paper: background citation

Development and Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Nature-Based Therapies in the Treatment of Anxiety and Depression Symptoms: An Adolescent Population Sample

TypeinterventionalSponsorMuş Alparslan UniversityRan2025 to 2025Enrolled60ConditionsAnxiety, DepressionArmsNature-Based Therapy
3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

181 citing papers in PubMed, 14 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 540 citations in OpenAlex.

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121 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.

Pim CuijpersDepartment of Clinical Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081, BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands; EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University and VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Leuphana University, Lünebrug, Germany.
Marit Sijbrandij
Sander L Koole
Gerhard Andersson
Aartjan T Beekman
Charles F Reynolds
Amsterdam UMC Location VUmc · NLEMGO Institute for Health and Care Research · NLLeuphana University of Lüneburg · DESwedish Institute · SEUniversity of Pittsburgh · US

Funding

University of Pittsburgh Clinical and Translational Science InstituteUL1TR000005 · NCATS · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · PI REIS, STEVEN E · 2012 to 2015
$50.8M
RESEARCH METHODS COREP30MH090333 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · PI DEW, MARY AMANDA · 2011 to 2015
$8.3M
NCATS NIH HHS UL1 TR000005NIMH NIH HHS P30 MH090333
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Although psychotherapy and antidepressant medication are efficacious in the treatment of depressive and anxiety disorders, it is not known whether they are equally efficacious for all types of disorders, and whether all types of psychotherapy and antidepressants are equally efficacious for each disorder. We conducted a meta-analysis of studies in which psychotherapy and antidepressant medication were directly compared in the treatment of depressive and anxiety disorders. Systematic searches in bibliographical databases resulted in 67 randomized trials, including 5,993 patients that met inclusion criteria, 40 studies focusing on depressive disorders and 27 focusing on anxiety disorders. The overall effect size indicating the difference between psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy after treatment in all disorders was g=0.02 (95% CI: -0.07 to 0.10), which was not statistically significant. Pharmacotherapy was significantly more efficacious than psychotherapy in dysthymia (g=0.30), and psychotherapy was significantly more efficacious than pharmacotherapy in obsessive-compulsive disorder (g=0.64). Furthermore, pharmacotherapy was significantly more efficacious than non-directive counseling (g=0.33), and psychotherapy was significantly more efficacious than pharmacotherapy with tricyclic antidepressants (g=0.21). These results remained significant when we controlled for other characteristics of the studies in multivariate meta-regression analysis, except for the differential effects in dysthymia, which were no longer statistically significant.

Identifiers

PMID23737423
PMCPMC3683266
OpenAlexW2006748124

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.