read this and just thought - on no - pACE all over again, just with kids now, then saw that "if patients get depressed or anxious they will be given CBT" - cant for the life of me work out what thats all about. There is so much constructionism in these trials and its hard to keep track - eg specialists who decide this or that, committees, panels, experts, God only knows who these people are and what biases they have. Ofcourse all trials have these sorts of arrangements, but we have all observed with PACE some of the major design biases with these trials. For example, will therapists be more enthusiastic for GET than GAT - who knows, only they do; yet we know therapist effect has a big impact on outcomes. In a centre that promotes CBT and GET its hard to see how such biases cant creep in -- if we are going to do these sorts of trials we certainly need independent people looking, not key proponents of certain dogma. For instance, White's recent study shows CBT useful via computer - whereas a large trial of CBT for depression (what CBT was designed for by Beck) showed no benefit (see Manchester study).
I could go on and on and on - Im just going to keep saying this mantra "the CBT push continues"
£5 million PACE --
£1.2 million FINE - null result
£840k Esther crawley + FINET her study nearly another £1 million NIHR funding
Collin £340k
+ 3 reserach associates