Objective: The aim of this study was to assess whether systematic reviews investigating psychotherapeutic interventions for depression are affected by publication bias. Only homogeneous data sets were included, as heterogeneous data sets can distort statistical tests of publication bias. Method: We applied Begg and Mazumdar's adjusted rank…

Objective: Many patients drop out of treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); some clinicians believe that trauma-focused treatments increase dropout. Method: We conducted a meta-analysis of dropout among active treatments in clinical trials for PTSD (42 studies; 17 direct comparisons). Results: The average dropout rate was 18%, but it…

Objective: Premature discontinuation from therapy is a widespread problem that impedes the delivery of otherwise effective psychological interventions. The most recent comprehensive review found an average dropout rate of 47% across 125 studies (Wierzbicki & Pekarik, 1993); however, given a number of changes in the field over the past 2 decades,…

Objective: Rates of nonattendance for psychotherapy hinder the effective delivery of evidence-based treatments. Although many strategies have been developed to increase attendance, the effectiveness of these strategies has not been quantified. Our aim in the present study was to undertake a meta-analysis of rigorously controlled studies to…

In a recent article in this journal, Poston and Hanson (2010) reported a meta-analysis of 17 studies on the use of psychological assessment as a therapeutic intervention (PATI) and concluded that "psychological assessment procedures--when combined with personalized, collaborative, and highly involving test feedback--have positive, clinically…

The main objective of this review was to provide a quantitative and methodologically sound evaluation of existing treatments for bereavement and grief reactions in children and adolescents. Two meta-analyses were conducted: 1 on controlled studies and 1 on uncontrolled studies. The 2 meta-analyses were based on a total of 27 treatment studies…

A meta-analysis was conducted with 65 school-based psychotherapy and counseling dissertations over the last 10 years (1998-2008) to assess if a file-drawer problem (i.e., studies conducted but not published that, as a whole, have different results than studies in the same area published) exists in the school-based outcome literature. An overall…

Objective: Outcome research has documented worsening among a minority of the patient population (5% to 10%). In this study, we conducted a meta-analytic and mega-analytic review of a psychotherapy quality assurance system intended to enhance outcomes in patients at risk of treatment failure. Method: Original data from six major studies conducted…

Background: Persons with intellectual disabilities (ID) often show challenging behaviour. We review distinct interventions that are applied to treat these challenging behaviours, and analyse intervention effects and moderating variables. Methods: A literature search was conducted using the databases "ERIC," "PsycINFO," "Web of Science" and…

Evaluating psychotherapeutic outcome is an important endeavor given psychology's focus on identifying effective treatments. There is ample evidence to suggest that psychotherapy interventions for children and adolescents are effective. Unfortunately, the child and adolescent psychotherapy outcome literature lags behind the adult-focused outcome…

The use of outcome data can serve as an important catalyst for improving career interventions. A follow-up to the Reese and Miller study was conducted over a 2-year period to assess whether modifications made to the course using the Reese and Miller data as a baseline resulted in subsequent improvements. Using a prepost group design that compared…

Previous quantitative reviews of research on psychotherapeutic interventions for bereaved persons have yielded divergent findings and have not included many of the available controlled outcome studies. This meta-analysis summarizes results from 61 controlled studies to offer a more comprehensive integration of this literature. This review examined…

Gerontologic research in the past 40 years has shown that caring for an older, disabled person affects the health and well-being of the caregiver. This important contribution led to a wide range of programs and services designed to buffer caregivers from the effects of stressors. Many of these programs have been quite innovative. Although…

In this article, the authors present a multilevel (or hierarchical linear) model that illustrates issues in the application of the model to data from meta-analytic studies. In doing so, several issues are discussed that typically arise in the course of a meta-analysis. These include the presence of non-zero between-study variability, how multiple…

Evaluated the effectiveness of paradoxical interventions in psychotherapy, in a meta-analysis of 12 data sets. Found that paradoxical interventions were as effective as, but not more effective than, the typical treatment made except for one month after treatment termination and with more severe cases, when it showed relatively greater…