D. Ekers
Behavioural Activation for Depression: An Update of Meta-Analysis of Effectiveness and Sub Group Analysis
Ekers, D.; Webster, L.A.D.; Van Straten, Annemieke; Cuijpers, P.; Richards, D.; Gilbody, S.
Authors
L.A.D. Webster
Annemieke Van Straten
P. Cuijpers
D. Richards
S. Gilbody
Abstract
Background: Depression is a common, disabling condition for which psychological treatments are recommended. Behavioural activation has attracted increased interest in recent years. It has been over 5 years since our meta-analyses summarised the evidence supporting and this systematic review updates those findings and examines moderators of treatment effect. Method: Randomised trials of behavioural activation for depression versus controls or anti-depressant medication were identified using electronic database searches, previous reviews and reference lists. Data on symptom level and study level moderators were extracted and analysed using meta-analysis, sub-group analysis and meta-regression respectively. Results: Twenty six randomised controlled trials including 1524 subjects were included in this meta-analysis. A random effects meta-analysis of symptom level post treatment showed behavioural activation to be superior to controls (SMD −0.74 CI −0.91 to −0.56, k = 25, N = 1088) and medication (SMD −0.42 CI −0.83 to-0.00, k = 4, N = 283). Study quality was low in the majority of studies and follow- up time periods short. There was no indication of publication bias and subgroup analysis showed limited association between moderators and effect size. Conclusions: The results in this meta-analysis support and strengthen the evidence base indicating Behavioural Activation is an effective treatment for depression. Further high quality research with longer term follow-up is needed to strengthen the evidence base.
Citation
Ekers, D., Webster, L., Van Straten, A., Cuijpers, P., Richards, D., & Gilbody, S. (2014). Behavioural Activation for Depression: An Update of Meta-Analysis of Effectiveness and Sub Group Analysis. PLoS ONE, 9(6), Article e100100. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100100
| Journal Article Type | Article |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | Jun 17, 2014 |
| Deposit Date | Jun 19, 2014 |
| Publicly Available Date | Aug 21, 2014 |
| Journal | PLoS ONE |
| Electronic ISSN | 1932-6203 |
| Publisher | Public Library of Science |
| Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Article Number | e100100 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100100 |
| Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1427994 |
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Copyright Statement
© 2014 Ekers et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.