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Public Library of Science, PLoS ONE, 11(8), p. e79034, 2013

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0079034

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Psychological Group-Treatments of Social Anxiety Disorder: A Meta-Analysis

Journal article published in 2013 by Hanna Wersebe, Marit Sijbrandij, Pim Cuijpers ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Background: A few meta-analyses have examined psychological treatments for a social anxiety disorder (SAD). This is the first meta-analysis that examines the effects of cognitive behavioural group therapies (CBGT) for SAD compared to control on symptoms of anxiety. Method: After a systematic literature search in PubMed, Cochrane, PsychINFO and Embase was conducted; eleven studies were identified that met the inclusion criteria. The studies had to be randomized controlled studies in which individuals with a diagnosed SAD were treated with cognitive-behavioural group therapy (CBGT) and compared with a control group. The overall quality of the studies was moderate. Results: The pooled effect size indicated that the difference between intervention and control conditions was 0.53 (96% CI: 0.33-0.73), in favour of the intervention. This corresponds to a NNT 3.24. Heterogeneity was low to moderately high in all analyses. There was some indication of publication bias. Conclusions: It was found that psychological group-treatments CBGT are more effective than control conditions in patients with SAD. Since heterogeneity between studies was high, more research comparing group psychotherapies for SAD to control is needed. © 2013 Wersebe et al.