| Summary: | Many children and adolescents struggle with mild symptoms of depression and/or anxiety at some point. When these symptoms begin to interfere with daily functioning and quality of life, children may need professional assistance to improve their well-being. Psychosocial interventions aimed at depression or anxiety are non-medicinal interventions, and can target children from risk groups (preventive interventions), children with elevated symptoms of, or diagnoses of depression or anxiety (treatment interventions). The Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Service has identified, evaluated and summarized research on the effect of psychosocial interventions. We included nine systematic reviews. The available evidence shows: Preventive interventions: We are uncertain of the effect of preventive interventions. Treatment interventions:1. CBT for children with anxiety disorders seems to result in fewer symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress. The evidence is of low quality.2. CBT possibly reduces the severity of symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder. The evidence is of low quality.3. CBT combined with medication compared to medication alone has possibly little or no effect on functioning, depressive symptoms or suicidal thoughts among children with depression. Children with obsessive compulsive disorder possibly improve after treatment with CBT. The evidence is of low quality.4. Children who receive psychological/educational treatment possibly show fewer symptoms of depression after three to nine months after treatment when compared to no treatment. The interventions have possible no effect when compared with placebo. The evidence is of low quality. It is difficult to conclude on the effects of any of the included interventions given that the results are mostly based on evidence of very low to low quality
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