Research Article: One-year recovery rates for young people with depression and/or anxiety not receiving treatment: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Abstract:
Objectives To systematically review 1-year recovery rates for young people experiencing depression and/or anxiety who are not receiving any specific mental health treatment. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Science and Global Health were searched for articles published from 1980 through to August 2022. Eligibility criteria Articles were peer-reviewed, published in English and had baseline and 1-year follow-up depression and/or anxiety outcomes for young people aged 10–24 years without specific treatment. Data extraction and synthesis Three reviewers extracted relevant data. Meta-analysis was conducted to calculate the proportion of individuals classified as recovered after 1?year. The quality of evidence was assessed by the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Results Of the 17?250 references screened for inclusion, five articles with 1011 participants in total were included. Studies reported a 1-year recovery rate of between 47% and 64%. In the meta-analysis, the overall pooled proportion of recovered young people is 0.54 (0.45 to 0.63). Conclusions The findings suggest that after 1?year about 54% of young people with symptoms of anxiety and/or depression recover without any specific mental health treatment. Future research should identify individual characteristics predicting recovery and explore resources and activities which may help young people recover from depression and/or anxiety. PROSPERO registration number CRD42021251556.
Introduction:
Adolescence and young adulthood are important developmental periods of social, behavioural and psychological change where there is a transition from the dependence of childhood to adulthood independence. 1 However, these periods are also associated with increased risk of experiencing mental distress with most functional mental disorders beginning before the age of 25 years. 2 Research suggests that the majority of young people are likely to experience mental distress at some point of time, 3 yet the spontaneous…
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