Effects of positive psychological interventions on positive and negative emotions in depressed individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Background

Positive psychological interventions (PPIs) are known to be effective in alleviating depression. However, the effect of PPIs on positive and negative emotions in depressed participants is not unclear.

Aims

To systematically investigate the effects of PPIs on positive and negative emotions in depressed individuals.

Methods

6 databases were searched for randomized controlled trials of PPIs in individuals with depressive disorders or depressive symptoms. Hedges’ g value was computed using a random-effects model to determine effect sizes.

Results

14 trials from 13 studies were included. Our meta-analysis showed that PPIs had significant but small effects on improving positive affect (g = 0.33, p = .02), life satisfaction (g = 0.26, p = .03), happiness (g = 0.62, p = .03) and depression (g = −0.32, p = .001), and negligible effects on improving well-being (g = 0.13, p = .24) and negative affect (g = −0.15, p = .31). Subgroup analyses of depression showed that PPIs have experienced benefits in improving depression in most subgroups. In addition, none of the subgroup analyses performed for outcomes other than depression found PPIs to be more effective than controls.

Conclusion

PPIs can improve positive affect, life satisfaction, happiness and depression in depressed individuals, but further studies are needed to validate their effects on well-being, and negative affect.

Keywords:

• Depression
• positive psychology intervention
• positive emotions
• negative emotions
• meta-analysis
• systematic review

Acknowledgments

There are no collaborators declared.

Ethics statement

Ethic approval is not required for the research presented in this paper.

Author contributions

SYC and YHZ were responsible for the determination of study topic and design of the study. SYC and WWZ conducted the literature search, extracted the data and perform quality evaluation. SYC contributed to the first draft of manuscript writing. WWZ, YC, CB, and SRY revised the manuscript. YHZ was responsible for the research activity planning and execution. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from Nanjing Commission of Health (Grant Number ZKX20030), Jiangsu Provincial Health Vocational College Culture Construction Research Institute (Grant Number JCK202013), and Jiangsu Province Hospital Association (Grant Number JSYGY-2-2021-411).