A systematic appraisal of allegiance effect in randomized controlled trials of psychotherapy

Annals of General Psychiatry

Volumn 14, Issue 1, 2015, Pages

  Dragioti, Elena ^a,b   Dimoliatis, Ioannis ^a   Fountoulakis, Konstantinos N ^c   Evangelou, Evangelos ^a,d  

^a UNIVERSITY OF IOANNINA   (Greece)

^b LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY   (Sweden)

^c ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI   (Greece)

^d IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Allegiance effect; Experimenter's allegiance; Non financial conflict of interest; Optimism bias; Psychotherapy; Systematic bias

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BEHAVIOR THERAPY; COGNITIVE THERAPY; CONFLICT OF INTEREST; FAMILY SYSTEM THERAPY; HUMAN; MENTAL DISEASE; META ANALYSIS; OPTIMISM; PARENT COUNSELING; PSYCHOANALYSIS; PSYCHOLOGICAL DEBRIEFING; PSYCHOTHERAPIST; PSYCHOTHERAPY; RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL (TOPIC); SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS; STATISTICAL BIAS; SYSTEMATIC REVIEW;

EID: 84941561322     PISSN: None     EISSN: 1744859X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1186/s12991-015-0063-1     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Leykin Y, DeRubeis RJ (2009) Allegiance in psychotherapy outcome research: Separating association from bias. Clin Psychol Sci Prac 16:54-65
2. Wampold BE (2001) The great psychotherapy debate: models, methods, and findings. Lawrence Erlbaum, Publishers, Mahwah
3. Rosenthal R, Rubin DB (1978) Interpersonal expectancy effects: the first 345 studies. Behav Brain Sci 1:377-415
4. Luborsky L, Singer B, Luborsky L (1975) Comparative studies of psychotherapies. Is it true that "everyone has won and all must have prizes"? Arch Gen Psychiatry 32:995-1008
5. Luborsky L, Diguer L, Seligman DA, Rosenthal R, Krause ED, Johnson S et al (1999) The researcher's own therapy allegiances: a 'wild card' in comparisons of treatment efficacy. Clin Psychol-Sci Pr 6:95-106
6. Malouff JM, Thorsteinsson EB, Schutte NS (2007) The efficacy of problem solving therapy in reducing mental and physical health problems: a meta-analysis. Clin Psychol Rev 27:46-57
7. Lambert MJ (1999) Are differential treatment effects inflated by researcher therapy allegiance? Could clever Hans count? Clin Psychol Sci Pract 6:127-130
8. Shoham V, Rohrbaugh M (1999) Beyond allegiance to comparative outcome studies. Clin Psychol-Sci Pr 6:120-123
9. Falkenström F, Markowitz JC, Jonker H, Philips B, Holmqvist R (2013) Can psychotherapists function as their own controls? Meta-analysis of the crossed therapist design in comparative psychotherapy trials. J Clin Psychiatry 74:482-491
10. Weisz JR, Weiss B, Han SS, Granger DA, Morton T (1995) Effects of psychotherapy with children and adolescents revisited: a meta-analysis of treatment outcome studies. Psychol Bull 117:450-468
11. Hollon SD (1999) Allegiance effects in treatment research: a commentary. Clin Psychol Sci Pract 6:107-112
12. Luborsky L, Rosenthal R, Diguer L, Andrusyna TP, Berman JS, Levitt JT et al (2002) The dodo bird verdict is alive and well-mostly. Clin Psychol Sci Pract 9:2-12
13. Robinson LA, Berman JS, Neimeyer RA (1990) Psychotherapy for the treatment of depression: a comprehensive review of controlled outcome research. Psychol Bull 108:30-49
14. Smith ML, Glass GV, Miller T (1980) The benefits of psychotherapy. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore
15. Spielmans GI, Berman MI, Usitalo AN (2011) Psychotherapy versus second-generation antidepressants in the treatment of depression: a meta-analysis. J Nerv Ment Dis 199:142-149
16. Tolin DF (2010) Is cognitive-behavioral therapy more effective than other therapies? A meta-analytic review. Clin Psychol Rev 30:710-720
17. Miller SD, Wampold BE, Varhely K (2008) Direct comparisons of treatment modalities for youth disorders: a meta-analysis. Psychother Res 18:5-14
18. Gaffan EA, Tsaousis I, Kemp-Wheeler SM (1995) Researcher allegiance and meta-analysis: the case of cognitive therapy for depression. J Consult Clin Psychol 63:966-980
19. Munder T, Gerger H, Trelle S, Barth J (2011) Testing the allegiance bias hypothesis: a meta-analysis. Psychother Res 21:670-684
20. Dragioti E, Dimoliatis I, Evangelou E (2015) Disclosure of researcher allegiance in meta-analyses and randomised controlled trials of psychotherapy: a systematic appraisal. BMJ Open 5:e007206
21. Wampold BE, Mondin GW, Moody M, Stich F, Benson K, Ahn H (1997) A meta-analysis of outcome studies comparing bona fide psychotherapies: empirically, "all must have prizes". Psychol Bull 122:203-215
22. Westen D, Novotny CM, Thomson-Brenner H (2004) The empirical status of empirically supported psychotherapies: assumptions, findings, and reporting in controlled clinical trials. Psychol Bull 130:631-663
23. Higgins JP, Altman DG, Gotzsche PC, Juni P, Moher D, Oxman AD et al (2011) The Cochrane Collaboration's tool for assessing risk of bias in randomised trials. BMJ 343:d5928
24. Higgins JPT, Green S (eds) (2011) Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions, version 5.1.0. The Cochrane Collaboration. http://www.cochranehandbook.org . Accessed July 2015
25. Furukawa TA, Watanabe N, Churchill R (2007) Combined psychotherapy plus antidepressants for panic disorder with or without agoraphobia. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 24:CD004364
26. Wampold BE, Budge SL, Laska KM, Del Re AC, Baardseth TP, Fluckiger C et al (2011) Evidence-based treatments for depression and anxiety versus treatment-as-usual: a meta-analysis of direct comparisons. Clin Psychol Rev 31:1304-1312
27. Shadish WR, Montgomery LM (1986) Marital/family therapy meta-analysis coding manual (Version 4.1). Memphis State University, Department of Psychology
28. Furukawa TA (1999) From effect size into number needed to treat. Lancet 353:1680
29. Chinn SA (2000) Simple method for converting an odds ratio to effect size for use in meta-analysis. Stat Med 19:3127-3131
30. Deeks JJ, Altman DG, Bradburn MJ (2001) Statistical methods for examining heterogeneity and combining results from several studies in meta-analysis. In: Egger M, Davey Smith G, Altman DG (eds) Systematic reviews in health care: meta-analysis in context. Publishing Group, London, pp 285-321
31. Sterne JA, Jüni P, Schulz KF, Altman DG, Bartlett C, Egger M (2002) Statistical methods for assessing the influence of study characteristics on treatment effects in 'meta-epidemiological' research. Stat Med 21:1513-1524
32. DerSimonian R, Laird N (1986) Meta-analysis in clinical trials. Control Clin Trials 7:177-188
33. Higgins JP, Thompson SG (2002) Quantifying heterogeneity in a meta-analysis. Stat Med 21:1539-1558
34. Thompson SG, Higgins JP (2002) How should meta-regression analyses be undertaken and interpreted? Stat Med 21:1559-1573
35. Engels EA, Schmid CH, Terrin N, Olkin I, Lau J (2000) Heterogeneity and statistical significance in meta-analysis: an empirical study of 125 meta-analyses. Stat Med 19:1707-1728
36. Evangelou E, Tsianos G, Ioannidis JP (2008) Doctors' versus patients' global assessments of treatment effectiveness: empirical survey of diverse treatments in clinical trials. BMJ 336:1287-1290
37. McLeod BD (2009) Understanding why therapy allegiance is linked to clinical outcomes. Clin Psychol Sci Pract 16:69-72
38. Addis ME, Wade W, Hatgis C (1999) Barriers to evidence based practice: Addressing practitioners' concerns about manual based psychotherapies. Clin Psychol Sci Pract 6:430-441
39. Riemer M, Rosof-Williams J, Bickman L (2005) Theories related to changing clinician practice. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am 14:241-254
40. Thase ME (1999) What is the investigator allegiance effect and what should we do about it? Clin Psychol-Sci Pr 6:113-115
41. Chalmers I, Matthews R (2006) What are implications of optimism bias in clinical research? Lancet 367:449-450
42. Maj M (2008) Non-financial conflicts of interests in psychiatric research and practice. Br J Psychiatry 193:91-92
43. Butler AC, Chapman JE, Forman EM, Beck AT (2006) The empirical status of cognitive-behavioral therapy: a review of meta-analyses. Clin Psychol Rev 26:17-31
44. Parker G, Fletcher K (2007) Treating depression with the evidence-based psychotherapies: a critique of the evidence. Acta Psychiatr Scand 115:352-359
45. Thompson DF (1993) Understanding financial conflicts of interest. N Engl J Med 329:573-576
46. Lexchin J, Bero LA, Djulbegovic B, Clark O (2003) Pharmaceutical industry sponsorship and research outcome and quality. BMJ 326:1167-1170
47. Wang AT, McCoy CP, Murad MH, Montori VM (2010) Association between industry affiliation and position on cardiovascular risk with rosiglitazone: cross sectional systematic review. BMJ 340:1344
48. Friedman LS, Richter ED (2004) Relationship between conflicts of interest and research results. J Gen Intern Med 19:51-56
49. Perlis RH, Perlis CS, Wu Y, Hwang C, Joseph M, Nierenberg AA (2005) Industry sponsorship and financial conflict of interest in the reporting of clinical trials in psychiatry. Am J Psychiatry 162:1957-1960
50. Cuijpers P, Driessen E, Hollon SD, van Oppen P, Barth J, Andersson G (2012) The efficacy of non-directive supportive therapy for adult depression: a meta-analysis. Clin Psychol Rev 32:280-291