Highly read on plosmedicine.org in July

Extracting robust evidence for the value of psychotherapy from clinical trials has been challenging, but comprehensive analysis of trials has found that various types of psychotherapy provide similar benefits for depression.

Jürgen Barth from the University of Bern, Switzerland, and his colleagues analysed 198 randomized, controlled clinical studies, covering seven psychotherapeutic techniques and involving 15,118 people with depression. The researchers used a technique called network meta-analysis, which allowed them to extract comparative information from individual studies.

Their analysis showed that each of the psychotherapies helped patients to a similar degree — but the effect was less marked in larger and blinded trials than in smaller and non-blinded ones. The clearest benefits were seen in the large and more rigorous studies assessing cognitive behavioural, interpersonal and problem-solving therapies.

PLoS Med. 10, e1001454 (2013)