Bruns, Keano (2025) Therapy or Medication: Comparing Strength of Evidence of Psychological and Pharmacological Depression Treatments. Research Master thesis, Research Master.
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Abstract
Depression is one of the most common mental disorders and requires effective, evidence-based treatments to reduce its burden. Two main kinds of approaches exist for treatment of mental disorders: 1) pharmacological medications and 2) psychological therapies. In this thesis, the two approaches have been explored and compared in terms of their evidential strength. To this end, data on the effects of 113 trials for 16 therapies and 128 trials for 21 antidepressants was collected and analysed. For each clinical trial a Bayes Factor was calculated to quantify how well treatment efficacy is supported by the research evidence. Results showed that therapies generally displayed more consistent evidential strength than medications against control groups. However, this finding was potentially biased by selectivity effects, as therapy trials, contrary to medication trials, are not required to be pre-registered or directly appeal to a governing body for approval. Within psychotherapies, the average strength of evidence was not consistent with the current evaluation labels: therapies labeled as having ‘modest’ research support surpassed therapies labeled as ‘strong’ in their evidential strength. Ultimately, a measure of strength of evidence such as the BF may aid clinical decision making by providing additional information about the evidence for, and the efficacy of mental health treatments.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Research Master) |
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| Supervisor name: | Ravenzwaaij, D. van |
| Degree programme: | Research Master |
| Differentiation route: | Mental health: perspectives from Neuro- and Clinical Psychology [Research Master] |
| Date Deposited: | 10 Jul 2025 15:07 |
| Last Modified: | 10 Jul 2025 15:07 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5447 |
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