SynthesisAddiction (Abingdon, England)2025
Positive psychological interventions for substance use, addiction and recovery: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Addiction (Abingdon, England), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 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
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Positive Psychotherapy for Smoking Cessation Enhanced with Text Messaging: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2026Article
- Article
- Associations of stress mindset with problematic alcohol use and human flourishing: an exploratory path analysis.Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire) · 2026Article
- Childhood Unpredictability and Smartphone Addiction in Chinese Adolescents: Mediating Role of Self-Concept Clarity and Self-Control and Moderating Role of Psychological Resilience.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Positive Emotion Regulation in Addiction: A New Frontier for Recovery Science.Current addiction reports · 2026Review
- Latent profile analysis of trait impulsivity facets and associations with resilience, problematic alcohol use, and quality of life.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
aimsThe present systematic review and meta-analysis synthesized the literature of positive psychological interventions (PPIs) for substance use and addiction recovery from 2010 to 2023, specifically examining intervention characteristics, outcome measurement, study rigor, feasibility/acceptability and efficacy (Prospero ID CRD42023392299).
methodsWe searched PubMed, PsycInfo and Web of Science for peer-reviewed papers in English, published between 2010 and 2023, that applied a PPI to people who used substances or were in addiction recovery. We also manually searched Google Scholar, ResearchGate and reference lists of publications. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool was used to assess study quality and risk of bias. We conducted meta-analyses of the effects of PPIs from eight full-scale randomized clinical trials (RCTs) (i.e. RCTs with treatment groups larger than 50 participants) that measured positive psychological outcomes (n = 5 RCTs; 12 interventions) and substance use outcomes (n = 6 RCTs; 9 interventions); all other outcomes were presented descriptively.
resultsThe systematic search yielded 30 eligible publications across 6 countries (14/30 from United States), that evaluated 36 individual PPIs. Nineteen articles reported randomized studies comparing a PPI with one or more control condition (eight full-scale RCTs, or trials assigning 50 or more participants to the intervention condition) and the remaining 11 were single-arm studies. PPIs varied regarding duration, mode of delivery and content. Feasibility and acceptability ratings of PPIs were positive across studies. Meta-analyses revealed a small, nonsignificant effect of PPIs on positive psychological outcomes [d = 0.23, 95% confidence interval (CI) = -0.06 to 0.52, P = 0.12] and a very small, nonsignificant effect on substance use outcomes (d = 0.11; 95% CI = -0.05 to 0.27, P = 0.19). Ten out of 30 (30%) studies received a strong quality rating.
conclusionsPositive psychological interventions appear to be feasible and engaging, with mixed efficacy, for people who use substances or are in recovery.
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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.