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Eckshtain, Dikla

The modest efficacy of psychological interventions for youth depression, including evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs), suggests a question: Do the therapy components match the coping strategies youths find helpful when dealing with depressed mood? Answering this question may help strengthen treatments. We asked 105 middle schoolers across a range of depression symptom levels to identify the coping strategies they used when they felt sad (habitual responses) and those that made them feel better (perceived-effective responses). Habitual and perceived-effective responses were coded for resemblance to EBPs, and each youth's habitual responses were coded for their match to the youth's perceived-effective responses. Most perceived-effective responses (92.6%) matched EBP components (most frequent: Behavioral Activation); however, 65.0% of the EBP components did not match any youth's habitual or perceived-effective responses. Youths at higher depression symptom levels were significantly more likely than low-symptom youths to report (a) habitual responses that did not match EBP components, (b) habitual responses that did not match their own perceived-effective responses, and (c) perceiving no effective response. The higher their depression symptom level, the less likely youths were to use strategies identified by researchers and perceived by themselves as effective, and the less likely they were to identify any perceived-effective coping strategy. The findings suggest a need to (a) determine which EBP components do in fact enhance youth coping, (b) design the most effective ways to help youths master those effective components, and (c) facilitate more frequent use of those strategies the youths already find effective.

Across 5 decades, hundreds of randomized trials have tested psychological therapies for youth internalizing (anxiety, depression) and externalizing (misconduct, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder) disorders and problems. Since the last broad-based youth meta-analysis in 1995, the number of trials has almost tripled and data-analytic methods have been refined. We applied these methods to the expanded study pool (447 studies; 30,431 youths), synthesizing 50 years of findings and identifying implications for research and practice. We assessed overall effect size (ES) and moderator effects using multilevel modeling to address ES dependency that is common, but typically not modeled, in meta-analyses. Mean posttreatment ES was 0.46; the probability that a youth in the treatment condition would fare better than a youth in the control condition was 63%. Effects varied according to multiple moderators, including the problem targeted in treatment: Mean ES at posttreatment was strongest for anxiety (0.61), weakest for depression (0.29), and nonsignificant for multiproblem treatment (0.15). ESs differed across control conditions, with “usual care” emerging as a potent comparison condition, and across informants, highlighting the need to obtain and integrate multiple perspectives on outcome. Effects of therapy type varied by informant; only youth-focused behavioral therapies (including cognitive-behavioral therapy) showed similar and robust effects across youth, parent, and teacher reports. Effects did not differ for Caucasian versus minority samples, but more diverse samples are needed. The findings underscore the benefits of psychological treatments as well as the need for improved therapies and more representative, informative, and rigorous intervention science.