{
  "abstract": "Introduction Approximately one in every six children and adolescents is affected by mental disorders, which impose significant costs on patients, their families and societies. Psychotherapy is the first-line treatment for many of these disorders, and systematic reviews of post-intervention effects show small to moderate favourable outcomes compared with control groups. However, the long-term effects of psychotherapy remain less well understood.Methods and analysis The LaKiJu META project aims to address this gap by developing an open-access database, which will subsequently be used for data synthesis. This database will be established through literature searches in nine databases for (cluster) randomised controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the long-term effects (≥6 months) of any type of psychotherapy in school-aged children and adolescents (ages 6;00 to 17;11 years) with mental disorders. Outcomes will be prioritised based on their relevance to patients, caregivers and clinicians and will encompass a broad range of measures, including symptom changes, response rates and reliable changes. Syntheses will use multilevel meta-analyses to compare intervention and control groups at follow-up assessments, across both transdiagnostic and disorder-specific symptom outcomes. In secondary analyses, we will examine changes within intervention groups over time. Moderator analyses will focus on the effects of study-, intervention- and patient-level characteristics.Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval for public involvement was obtained from the ethics committee of the Faculty of Psychology of the Ruhr University Bochum. For dissemination, we will employ tailored strategies to reach researchers, clinicians, patients and their caregivers, with all groups involved in the development of dissemination plans.PROSPERO registration number CRD420251003208 (preregistered on 10 March 2025).",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research, Mainz, Germany",
        "Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy for Children and Adolescents, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Sarah K Schäfer"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research, Mainz, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Clara F Burmeister"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Mental Health Research and Treatment Center (FBZ), Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany",
        "German Center for Mental Health (DZPG), partner site Bochum-Marburg, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Eva Lottermoser"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Christian G Schäfer"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Departmental Library, Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Lorena Cascant Ortolano"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research, Mainz, Germany",
        "Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Jutta Stoffers-Winterling"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Mental Health Research and Treatment Center (FBZ), Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany",
        "German Center for Mental Health (DZPG), partner site Bochum-Marburg, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Tabea Flasinksi"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Monika Equit"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Mental Health Research and Treatment Center (FBZ), Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany",
        "German Center for Mental Health (DZPG), partner site Bochum-Marburg, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Silvia Schneider"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research, Mainz, Germany",
        "Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Klaus Lieb"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Mental Health Research and Treatment Center (FBZ), Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany",
        "German Center for Mental Health (DZPG), partner site Bochum-Marburg, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Anke de Haan"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Long-term effects of psychotherapy in children and adolescents: protocol for database development and a systematic review in the LaKiJu META project",
  "uid": "df8aabc3-f99e-5781-b7b6-424de44f5960"
}