A meta-analysis of the efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy for children

Compared to the use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in the treatment of adult psychopathology, there are fewer empirical studies on children, which makes it difficult to summarize the use of ACT in children. The current study presented the results of a meta-analysis of 14 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the efficacy of ACT for 1189 children. Compared with treatment as usual (TAU) and waitlist, ACT significantly improved the symptoms of primary outcome measures such as anxiety and depression [SMD = −0.59, CI(-0.87, −0.31), p < 0.001; SMD = −0.86, CI(-1.13, −0.59), p < 0.001]. However, there was no significant difference between ACT and traditional cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). On secondary outcomes such as quality of life and well-being, ACT performed similarly to traditional CBT and TAU, but outperformed the untreated control group [SMD = 1.74, CI (0.78, 2.69), p < 0.001; I² = 82.8%]. Our findings indicate that ACT is more effective than TAU and untreated groups in treating anxiety, depression and other mental and behavioral disorders, while not superior to traditional CBT. We also found that there was no significant difference in effects on improving the positive mental factors and behaviors for children compared to existing and usual treatments, but ACT did outperform the untreated group. More high-quality research with an improved design that focuses on these positive mental factors and behaviors of children are needed to understand the efficacy of ACT for children.