Citation

Morina N, Malek M, Nickerson A, Bryant RA. Depress. Anxiety 2017; 34(8): 679-691.

Affiliation

School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/da.22618

PMID

28419625

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Most survivors of mass violence live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We conducted a meta-analysis of randomized controlled psychotherapy trials for adult posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression in LMICs.

METHODS: We included 18 clinical trials (3,058 participants), in which 25 and 18 treatment arms measured symptoms of PTSD and depression, respectively.

RESULTS: Active treatments for PTSD yielded a large aggregated pre-post effect size (g = 1.29; 95% CI = [0.99; 1.59]) and a small to medium effect size at posttreatment when compared to control conditions (g = 0.39; 95% CI = [0.24; 0.55]). Effect sizes were similar for pretreatment versus follow-up (g = 1.75; 95% CI = [1.17; 2.32]) and in comparison to waitlist at follow-up (g = 0.93; 95% CI = [0.56; 1.31]). Active treatments for depression produced large pre-post (g = 1.28; 95% CI = [0.96; 1.61]) and controlled effect sizes (posttreatment, comparison to control conditions, g = 0.86; 95% CI = [0.54; 1.18]).

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that psychological interventions can effectively reduce symptoms of PTSD and depression in LMICs. Future research needs to focus on cost-effective interventions that are likely to be disseminated to the large numbers of war survivors in LMICs.

© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Language: en

Keywords

PTSD; clinical trials; depression; meta-analysis; treatment