ReviewFrontiers in psychiatry2020
Single-Subject Research in Psychiatry: Facts and Fictions.
Review in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Don't Miss the Moment: A Systematic Review of Ecological Momentary Assessment in Suicide Research.Frontiers in digital health · 2022Pooled it
- Online-delivered eye movement desensitization and reprocessing treatment for adults with post-traumatic stress disorder due to multiple traumas: a non-concurrent multiple baseline design.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2026Trial
- Individual-Level Effects of a Digital Behavioural Treatment for Chronic Pain: Proof-of-Concept of a Single-Case Experimental Design Study.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2025Trial
- Can Physical Activity, Sleep Parameters, and Sleep-Wake Patterns Predict Outcome of Combined Chronotherapy in Mood Disorder During Routine Clinical Practice? An Exploratory Study.Journal of personalized medicine · 2026Article
- Multidisciplinary perspectives on personalised prevention in youth mental health.Frontiers in digital health · 2025Article
- "Surviving against the odds. The impact of peer support workers on a chronically suicidal adolescent in secure residential youth care: a single case report from the Netherlands".International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2024Article
- Article
- Temporal Interactions between Maintenance of Cerebral Cortex Thickness and Physical Activity from an Individual Person Micro-Longitudinal Perspective and Implications for Precision Medicine.Journal of personalized medicine · 2024Article
- Individual-specific change points in circadian rest-activity rhythm and sleep in individuals tapering their antidepressant medication: an actigraphy study.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Real-time monitoring of increases in restlessness to assess idiographic risk of recurrence of depressive symptoms.Psychological medicine · 2023Article
- Within-day bidirectional associations between physical activity and affect: A real-time ambulatory study in persons with and without depressive and anxiety disorders.Depression and anxiety · 2022Article
- Effectivity of (Personalized) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia in Mental Health Populations and the Elderly: An Overview.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Review
- Anticipating manic and depressive transitions in patients with bipolar disorder using early warning signals.International journal of bipolar disorders · 2022Article
- Daily associations between affect and cognitive performance in older adults with depression and cognitive impairment: a series of seven single-subject studies in the Netherlands.BMC geriatrics · 2022Article
- Depression in Fibromyalgia Patients May Require Low-Dose Naltrexone to Respond: A Case Report.Cureus · 2022Article
- Depression and executive functioning bidirectionally impair one another across 9 years: Evidence from within-person latent change and cross-lagged models.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2021Article
- A Narrative Review of Network Studies in Depression: What Different Methodological Approaches Tell Us About Depression.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Scientific evidence in the field of psychiatry is mainly derived from group-based ("nomothetic") studies that yield group-aggregated results, while often the need is to answer questions that apply to individuals. Particularly in the presence of great inter-individual differences and temporal complexities, information at the individual-person level may be valuable for personalized treatment decisions, individual predictions and diagnostics. The single-subject study design can be used to make inferences about individual persons. Yet, the single-subject study is not often used in the field of psychiatry. We believe that this is because of a lack of awareness of its value rather than a lack of usefulness or feasibility. In the present paper, we aimed to resolve some common misconceptions and beliefs about single-subject studies by discussing some commonly heard "facts and fictions." We also discuss some situations in which the single-subject study is more or less appropriate, and the potential of combining single-subject and group-based study designs into one study. While not intending to plea for single-subject studies at the expense of group-based studies, we hope to increase awareness of the value of single-subject research by informing the reader about several aspects of this design, resolving misunderstanding, and providing references for further reading.
Indexed as
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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.