Are individual and group treatments equally effective in the treatment of depression in adults? A meta-analysis.

By Pim Cuijpers, A. Straten, L. Warmerdam. 2008

127 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background and Objectives: It is well-established that psychological interventions are effective in the treatment of depression. However, it is not yet clear what the optima format is in which psychological treatments should be delivered. Although several studies have examined whether individual and group treatments are equally effective in the treatment of depression, no comprehensive meta-analysis has examined this. Methods: We searched major bibliographical databased and conducted a meta-analysis of 15 studies in which individual and group therapies were compared directly to each other. Results: The mean effect size indicating the difference between individual and group therapies in depressive symptomatology at post-test was 0.20 (95% CI: [0.05 0.35]; p < 0.01), in favor of individual therapies, with a lower drop-out rate in individual interventions (OR = 0.56; 95% CI: [0.37, 0.86]; p < 0.01). At follow-up no significant differences were found. Conclusions: Although individual therapy seems to be somewhat more effective than group therapy at the short term, it is not clear whether this is relevant from a clinical point of view. Because of the small number of studies and the limited quality, more research is needed to examine whether the difference between individual and group treatment is clinically relevant.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cbb89437df0b418de1bd0ed1acfec0c55b1d8b7d

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Applied Psychology

1. Irene López-Gómez
2. Carmelo Vázquez
3. Gonzalo Hervás
4. Covadonga Chaves

In Clinical Psychology

1. Irene López-Gómez
2. Carmelo Vázquez
3. Gonzalo Hervás
4. Covadonga Chaves

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

1. Irene López-Gómez
2. Carmelo Vázquez
3. Gonzalo Hervás
4. Covadonga Chaves

Citations in the corpus

• A Comparative Study on the Efficacy of a Positive Psychology Intervention and a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Clinical Depression (2017, background): “A group format was chosen for delivering the interventions due to its cost-effectiveness and widespread application that allowed comparison with previous studies (Cuijpers et al. 2008b).”