By Yueqi Zhang, Johns Hopkins University

Zhang and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of school-based mental health interventions focused on reducing anxiety and depression in K-12 students.  Stringent inclusion criteria and auxiliary moderators were used to analyze 29 studies of 32 programs.  A significant positive mean effect of school-based interventions on assuaging students’ symptoms of depression and anxiety was found, a contrast to past reviews on the subject. 

In general, a significant positive mean effect of school-based interventions on symptoms of depression and anxiety was observed (ES=+0.24), albeit possibly inflated due to publication bias. For K-12 students, interventions focused on anxiety were more effective than those focused on depression. In addition, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) programs were more common and had significantly larger effect sizes than other programs.

As in a previous meta-analysis, this study found that teacher-delivered interventions had a lower mean effect size than clinician-delivered interventions. However, in contrast…