Trial reportPsychological medicine2021
Does the unified protocol really change neuroticism? Results from a randomized trial.
Trial report in Psychological medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 124 citations in OpenAlex.
- Personality Type Shapes Acute Anxiety Response to Music and Medicine Intervention During First Chemotherapy (PEGASUS-2).Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2026Trial
- Cognitive Reappraisal as a Potential Mechanism of Unified Protocol for Emotional Disorders.Behavior therapy · 2025Trial
- BPD Compass: Using a dimensional model of psychopathology to treat co-occurring borderline personality disorder and posttraumatic stress symptoms.Journal of traumatic stress · 2024Trial
- Assessing Theories of State and Trait Change in Neuroticism and Symptom Improvement in the Unified Protocol.Behavior therapy · 2024Trial
- Moderators of LGBQ-affirmative cognitive behavioral therapy: ESTEEM is especially effective among Black and Latino sexual minority men.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology · 2023Trial
- Isolating the Effects of Mindfulness Training Across Anxiety Disorder Diagnoses in the Unified Protocol.Behavior therapy · 2020Trial
- Neuroticism, Internalizing Psychopathology, and Affective Reactions to Thought Content in Daily Life.Journal of personality · 2026Article
- Toward next-generation stress generation research: Expert consensus methodological guidelines.Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2026Article
- Maladaptive Personality Traits in Primary Care: Validation of the German Modified Brief Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID5BF + M).Assessment · 2026Article
- Understanding the Relationship Between the Big Five Personality Traits and the Cognitive Appraisals Leading to Emotions: An Integrative Narrative Review.Emotion review : journal of the International Society for Research on Emotion · 2026Article
- Peer delivered, emotion regulation-focused mental health prevention training for fire fighter trainees: Design and methodology of a randomized controlled trial.Contemporary clinical trials communications · 2025Article
- Personality traits as predictors of PTSD and depression symptoms following exposure-based treatment in an intensive outpatient program.Journal of mood and anxiety disorders · 2025Article
- Evaluation of a transdiagnostic mental health intervention in German primary care: study protocol for a parallel-group, two-arm, cluster randomised controlled pilot study.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2025Article
- The effectiveness of an unified transdiagnostic intervention based on common mechanisms on the obsessive-compulsive personality pattern.Journal of education and health promotion · 2025Article
- Pilot outcomes and exploration of treatment mechanisms using a culturally adapted version of the unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders to improve mental health symptoms, alcohol misuse, functional outcomes, and sleep quality in emergency responders.Frontiers in health services · 2025Article
- The Continuity of Adversity: Negative Emotionality Links Early Life Adversity With Adult Stressful Life Events.Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2024Article
- Association of neuroticism with incident dementia, neuroimaging outcomes, and cognitive function.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2024Article
- Personality disorder coverage, prevalence, and convergence: do thePsychological medicine · 2024Article
- Surveying veterans affairs mental health care providers on experiences working with veteran patients with antagonistic clinical presentations.Psychological services · 2024Article
- Exploring the optimal factor structure of mind-wandering: Associations with neuroticism.PloS one · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundNeuroticism is associated with the onset and maintenance of a number of mental health conditions, as well as a number of deleterious outcomes (e.g. physical health problems, higher divorce rates, lost productivity, and increased treatment seeking); thus, the consideration of whether this trait can be addressed in treatment is warranted. To date, outcome research has yielded mixed results regarding neuroticism's responsiveness to treatment, perhaps due to the fact that study interventions are typically designed to target disorder symptoms rather than neuroticism itself. The purpose of the current study was to explore whether a course of treatment with the unified protocol (UP), a transdiagnostic intervention that was explicitly developed to target neuroticism, results in greater reductions in neuroticism compared to gold-standard, symptom focused cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) protocols and a waitlist (WL) control condition.
methodPatients with principal anxiety disorders (N = 223) were included in this study. They completed a validated self-report measure of neuroticism, as well as clinician-rated measures of psychological symptoms.
resultsAt week 16, participants in the UP condition exhibited significantly lower levels of neuroticism than participants in the symptom-focused CBT (t(218) = -2.17, p = 0.03, d = -0.32) and WL conditions(t(207) = -2.33, p = 0.02, d = -0.43), and these group differences remained after controlling for simultaneous fluctuations in depression and anxiety symptoms.
conclusionsTreatment effects on neuroticism may be most robust when this trait is explicitly targeted.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.