Treatment satisfaction with cognitive-behavioral therapy among children and adolescents with anxiety and depression: A systematic review and meta-synthesis

Recent reviews estimated that the worldwide prevalence of anxiety and depression in children and adolescents is increasing, which has led to rising demands for treatment. Studies on clinical outcomes have shown positive effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in children and adolescents with anxiety and depression. However, there is a limited body of studies on the perspectives and experiences of the treatment participants. The objective of this review was to investigate treatment satisfaction with CBT among children and adolescents with anxiety and depression. We focused on the reporting quality of the treatment satisfaction and experiences of participants in the selected studies. From 1379 identified studies, 35 were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The results of a meta-synthesis and proportional meta-analysis suggest moderate to high treatment satisfaction with CBT in depressed and anxious children and adolescents. The included studies showed moderate to good reporting quality on treatment satisfaction. The measurements used varied, indicating a risk of different evaluations under the concept of “treatment satisfaction”. The common topics measured for treatment satisfaction were acceptability, treatment usefulness, alliance, barriers, recommendation, and others, leading to uncertainty concerning generalization. A wide variety of measures were used, indicating the need for standardized measures for treatment satisfaction in future research.