ArticleNeuropsychiatric disease and treatment2018
Comparative efficacy and acceptability of bibliotherapy for depression and anxiety disorders in children and adolescents: a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.
Article in Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05351645 (Digital Narrative Bibliotherapy as a Scalable Intervention for Suicidal Thoughts), which is not on this map. Cited by 20 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled 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.
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.
Digital Narrative Bibliotherapy as a Scalable Intervention for Suicidal Thoughts: A Randomized Controlled Trial (Testing Whether Selected Blog Posts Can Improve Well-being)
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Children's Literature on Anxiety: A Systematic Review and Content Analysis.Behavior therapy · 2025Pooled it
- Estimation of Effect Heterogeneity in Rare Events Meta-Analysis.Psychometrika · 2022Pooled it
- Mirrors for Pacific Islander Children: Teaching Resilience Through Culturally Adapted Bibliotherapy.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Trial
- A Randomized Controlled Trial of A Gamified Digital Mental Health Intervention for Child Anxiety.Child psychiatry and human development · 2026Article
- How reading behavior shapes physical and mental health: evidence from China.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Feasibility and Acceptability of Using an Evidence-Based Tai Chi Intervention for Managing the Fatigue-Sleep Disturbance-Depression Symptom Cluster in Breast Cancer Patients.Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) · 2025Article
- Recent developments in bibliotherapy for adolescent depression.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Review
- Psychotherapeutic treatments for depression in older adults.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2024Article
- Internet-Delivered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety.Advances in psychiatry and behavioral health · 2024Article
- Self-management, self-care, and self-help in adolescents with emotional problems: a scoping review.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2024Article
- Psychosocial interventions for depression among young people in Sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis.International journal of mental health systems · 2024Review
- A randomized controlled trial of the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy-based self-help psychotherapy books on anxiety and depressive symptoms: A bibliotherapy study.Dusunen adam : Bakirkoy Ruh ve Sinir Hastaliklari Hastanesi yayin organi · 2024Article
- The Development of an Evidence-Based Telephone-Coached Bibliotherapy Protocol for Improving Dementia Caregiving Appraisal.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Anxiety problems in children and adolescents: a population-based cohort study on incidence and management in Dutch primary care.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2022Article
- Effect of bibliotherapy on reducing anxiety among pre-operative patients in Gujarat, India.Bioinformation · 2022Article
- Assessing the Effectiveness and Use of Bibliotherapy Implementation Among Children with Autism by Board-Certified Behavior Analysts.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2021Article
- Clinical Effectiveness of Training for Awareness Resilience and Action Online Compared to Standard Treatment for Adolescents and Young Adults With Depression: Study Protocol and Analysis Plan for a Pragmatic, Multi-Center Randomized Controlled Superiority Trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
- Evaluating construct equivalence of youth depression measures across multiple measures and multiple studies.Psychological assessment · 2019Article
- Anxiety, depression, self-esteem among children of alcoholic and nonalcoholic parents.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2019Article
- Literary Prescriptions: Applying Bibliotherapy in a Psychotherapeutic Context.Innovations in clinical neuroscienceReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDepression and anxiety are the most common mental disorders in children and adolescents. Bibliotherapy is a treatment using written materials for mental health problems. Its main advantages are ease of use, low cost, low staffing demands, and greater privacy. Yet few meta-analyses have focused on the effect of bibliotherapy on depression and anxiety disorders in children and adolescents.
methodsWe included randomized controlled trials comparing bibliotherapy with control conditions for depression and anxiety in children and adolescents (aged ≤18 years). Five electronic databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, Web of Science, and PsycINFO) were searched from inception to January 2017. Efficacy was defined as mean change scores in depression and anxiety symptoms. Acceptability was defined as the proportion of participants who discontinued the treatment. Random effects model was used. An intention-to-treat analysis was conducted.
resultsEight studies with 979 participants were selected. At posttreatment, bibliotherapy was significantly more effective than the control conditions in reducing the symptoms of depression or anxiety (standardized mean difference, -0.52; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.89 to -0.15). Bibliotherapy did not have statistically significantly more all-cause discontinuations than controls (risk ratios, 1.66; 95% CI, 0.93 to 2.95). We also performed subgroup analyses for efficacy outcomes in different categories (types of disorder, mean age, control conditions, and parental involvement) of studies and found that bibliotherapy has been more effective in depressive adolescents. LIMITATIONS: Limited studies were eligible in this review and hence there was potential publication bias.
conclusionAccording to the findings in this review, bibliotherapy may be more beneficial in treating depression in adolescents, but shows less robust effects for anxiety in children. Further well-defined clinical studies should be performed to confirm these outcomes.
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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.