title: Psychological treatment of late-life anxiety: an empirical review.
abstract: This study provides a meta-analytic review of nonpharmacological interventions for late-life anxiety, focusing on treatment efficacy. Included in the analysis are studies in which a comparison was made either to a control condition or to another treatment. A total of 15 outcome studies, published or reported between January 1975 and January 2002, were identified involving 495 participants (mean age exceeding 55.0 years and a grand mean of 69.5 years) and providing 20 separate treatment interventions. The analysis indicated that psychological interventions were reliably more effective than no treatment on self-rated and clinician-rated measures of anxiety, yielding an effect size of .55. Maintenance of treatment gains (a minimum of 6 months follow-up) was insufficiently reported across studies to allow for a reliable demonstration of an overall estimate of long-term efficacy. It is concluded that psychological interventions produce significant improvements, but the analyses must be qualified by data limitations in the research synthesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. inger.nordhus@psykp.uib.no
authors.forename: Inger Hilde
authors.initials: IH
authors.lastname: Nordhus
authors.forename: Ståle
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pallesen
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D036262:Empirical Research; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011613:Psychotherapy / Q000379:methods*