Phd in DYNAMIC AND CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Thesis title: The therapeutic effect of behavioural interventions on tic severity for children and adolescents with Tourette Syndrome and Chronic Tic Disorders: a meta-analysis of randomized control trials

Comprehensive Behavioural Intervention for Tics (CBIT), Habit Reversal Training (HRT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) are forms of behavioural therapy (BT) that can reduce tics in children and adolescents with tic disorders, but the efficacy of these interventions, and of their different types of delivering (face-to-face, group, internet delivering), needs to be clarified. A meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the efficacy of BT for young individuals with Tourette Syndrome (TS) or Chronic Tic Disorders (CTDs). Standard mean differences (SMD) were used as effect size measure to assess the efficacy of BT. Subgroup analyses were performed to identify the potential heterogeneity among studies. A total of 11 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) including 468 patients with TS or CTD were identified for the quantitative analysis. The pooled SMD was 0.551 (95% CI: 0.308−0.794). Overall, it was found a small to medium effect size for the efficacy of BT, suggesting that BT is effective for the treatment of young patients with tic disorders. The individual face-to-face approach seems to be more effective than online approach. Further high-quality RCTs are needed to determine the efficacy of single interventions among behaviour treatments.