SynthesisEpidemiology and psychiatric sciences2025
Self-reports vs clinician ratings of efficacies of psychotherapies for depression: a meta-analysis of randomized trials.
Synthesis in Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for social anxiety disorder: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.BMC psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Effectiveness ofPsychological medicine · 2026Trial
- Digital Psychological Intervention for Inflammatory Rheumatic Diseases: A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2025Trial
- Cognitive behavioral therapy skills via a smartphone app for subthreshold depression among adults in the community: the RESiLIENT randomized controlled trial.Nature medicine · 2025Trial
- Efficacy and safety of a mobile app-based, flexible-schedule digital therapeutic intervention versus psychoeducation for panic disorder: An open-label randomized controlled trial.Internet interventions · 2026Article
- Article
- Deprexis for Veteran Depression: Open-Label Pilot Trial Examining Feasibility, Acceptability, and Preliminary Efficacy.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- Iatrogenic harm in eating disorder treatment: a lived experience-led call for epistemic justice and accountability.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- Advances in Perinatal Depression: A Focus on Screening and Treatment.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Next-step treatment for schizophrenia non-responsive to antipsychotics: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
- Unveiling discrepancies in depression detection among persons with dementia: A comparative analysis of caregiver and self-report.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2026Article
- Article
- Arabic validation of the VAGUS insight into psychosis scale among Lebanese patients with schizophrenia.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Efficacy of parent-infant psychotherapy with mothers with postpartum mental disorder: results from a randomized controlled trial.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- Identifying predictors of student depression through validated machine learning pipelines.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- The neuroimaging correlates of depression established across six large-scale population datasets.Nature. Mental health · 2026Article
- Rapid relief online: A randomized trial of a single-session simple-swift reconstruction approach group during the COVID-19 surge.Internet interventions · 2025Article
- Concordance between self- and clinician ratings of depression during inpatient treatment in adolescents: changes over time and probable response shift.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2025Article
- Smartphone based cognitive behavioural therapy for adults with no or minimal depressive symptoms in Japan: an exploratory secondary analysis of RESiLIENT trial.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of a digital health application (Multiple sclerosis journal - experimental, translational and clinicalArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsThe comparability between self-reports and clinician-rated scales for measuring depression following treatment has been a long-standing debate, with studies finding mixed results. While the use of self-reports in psychotherapy trials is very common, it has been widely assumed that these tools pose a validity threat when masking of participants is not possible. We conducted a meta-analysis across randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of psychotherapy for depression to examine if treatment effect estimates obtained via self-reports differ from clinician-rated outcomes.
methodsWe identified studies from a living database of psychotherapies for depression (updated to 1 January 2023). We included RCTs measuring depression at post-treatment with both a self-report and a clinician-rated scale. As our main model, we ran a multilevel hierarchical meta-analysis, resulting in a pooled differential effect size (Δ
resultsA total of 91 trials (283 effect sizes) were included. In our main model, we found that self-reports produced smaller effect size estimates compared to clinician-rated instruments (Δ
conclusionsSelf-report instruments did not overestimate the effects of psychotherapy for depression and were generally more conservative than clinician assessments. Patients' perception of improvement should not be considered less valid by default, despite the inherent challenge of masking in psychotherapy.
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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.