The efficacy of psychotherapies and pharmacotherapies for mental disorders in adults: an umbrella review and meta‐analytic evaluation of recent meta‐analyses

Mental disorders represent a worldwide public health concern. Psychotherapies and pharmacotherapies are recommended as first line treatments. However, evidence has emerged that their efficacy may be overestimated, due to a variety of shortcomings in clinical trials (e.g., publication bias, weak control conditions such as waiting list). We performed an umbrella review of recent meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of psychotherapies and pharmacotherapies for the main mental disorders in adults. We selected meta-analyses that formally assessed risk of bias or quality of studies, excluded weak comparators, and used effect sizes for target symptoms as primary outcome. We searched PubMed and…