a systematic review and meta-analysis on controlled treatment trials of metacognitive therapy for anxiety disorders

background: to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis on controlled treatment trials of meta-cognitive therapy for anxiety disorders. materials and methods: studies were included if they employed controlled methodology and treated people above 18 years with anxiety disorders. case studies (with less than 4 cases) and single case designed studies were excluded. a comprehensive literature search identified 15 trials for systematic review. results: all included studies showed better treatment results in the mct arms compared to the control groups. we also statistically pooled the results across studies (when possible). the  meta-analyses also showed that mct had statistically significant better results compared to the control groups in gad (both immediately post-treatment and 12 months post-therapy results), ocd, and ptsd (p-values ranged <0.0001-0.025). conclusion: based on the results of our systematic review,mct seems to be an effective treatment for anxiety disorders and can effectively control their psychological problems.