SynthesisChild psychiatry and human development2023
Family-Based Interventions for Youth Depression: Meta-Analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials.
Synthesis in Child psychiatry and human development, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 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
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Effectiveness of interventions for anxiety and depression in children and young people: an umbrella review of meta-analyses.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Implementation research on the intervention mode of "Comorbidity-Co-causes-Joint-prevention" comprehensive demonstration district of depression and obesity among children and adolescents in Beijing: study protocol.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Patterns of family-school environment influence depressive symptoms among adolescents in China: the mediating role of resilience.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- The social determinants of mental health and disorder: evidence, prevention and recommendations.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2024Article
- Family Functioning, Maternal Depression, and Adolescent Cognitive Flexibility and Its Associations with Adolescent Depression: A Cross-Sectional Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Research Review: The internalizing paradox - youth anxiety and depression symptoms, psychotherapy outcomes, and implications for research and practice.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Youth depression is an impairing pediatric condition for which psychotherapy effects are modest. Can outcomes be improved by treatments that address the family context, as proposed in practice parameters of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry? To find out, we searched five decades of research for randomized controlled trials testing family-based interventions; 11 trials were found for ages 4-18 years. Using robust variance estimation, we obtained estimates of effect size (ES) and tested candidate moderators that might explain variation in ES. Overall pooled ES of the studies was 0.33 at posttreatment, similar to that reported for all youth depression treatments in three prior meta-analyses (i.e., 0.36, 0.30, and 0.29), but higher for adolescents (ages ≥ 13, 0.50) than children (0.04). Taken together, our findings do not show superior outcomes for family-based interventions, and raise questions about how much confidence can be placed in the evidence base to date. The small number of relevant studies in more than five decades, together with the publication bias and risk of bias concerns, highlights the need for more trials testing family-based treatment, and for pre-registered reports, publicly-available preprints, and other mechanisms for improving the dissemination of completed research.
Indexed as
Identifiers
35616765What 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.