title: Efficacy and Acceptability of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression in Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
abstract: Few meta-analyses have focused on the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression in children.
  
  
  
  Randomized controlled trials comparing CBT with control conditions for depression in children (≤13 years old) were included.
  
  
  
  Seven electronic databases (PubMed, Embase, CENTRAL, Web of Science, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and LiLACS) were searched from inception to September 2015.
  
  
  
  The primary efficacy was defined as mean change scores in depressive symptoms, and the second efficacy (remission) was a score below the threshold for a diagnosis of depression, both after treatment and at the end of follow-up. We also measured acceptability by the proportion of participants who discontinued treatment up to posttreatment.
  
  
  
  Nine studies with 306 participants were selected for this analysis. At posttreatment, CBT was significantly more effective than control conditions in terms of primary efficacy (standardized mean difference, -0.41; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.64 to -0.18) and secondary efficacy (odds ratio [OR], 2.16; 95% CI, 1.24 to 3.78). At follow-up, the results were consistent with those of efficacy outcomes at posttreatment, with a standardized mean difference of -0.34 and an OR of 2.04. CBT had no statistical more all-cause discontinuations than the control group (OR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.26 to 1.82). However, subgroup analyses found that CBT was only significantly more effective than nontreatment, while it was not better than wait list or psychological placebo.
  
  
  
  CBT seems to be more beneficial in the treatment of depression in children than nontreatment; however, this finding is limited by the small size of the trials and low literature quality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Lining
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Xinyu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Chanjuan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Yuqing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Juncai
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Lanxiang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors.forename: Xue
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China. Electronic address: xiepeng973@126.com.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Xie
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; D003863:Depression / Q000628:therapy*; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: adolescent; child; depression; meta-analysis; psychotherapy