Table 1.
List of included components and their definitions
| Component | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| w | Waiting component | Participants are aware that they will receive an active treatment after a waiting phase. This component was considered present even when non-specific psychotherapy was provided while the participants were aware that they could receive the ‘active’ intervention after the waiting period was over |
| pl | Placebo effect | Effect of an intervention due to the patients’ belief that they are receiving some form of treatment |
| ps | Psychological support | Effect of an intervention due to various non-specific techniques (e.g. encouragement, rationalizing and reframing, anticipatory guidance, etc.) administered within the context of a therapeutic alliance (Winston et al. 2004). Considered present even in self-help format if personal encouragement was provided to proceed with the self-help material |
| pe | Psychoeducation | It consists in providing patients information about their psychological disease |
| br | Breathing retraining | It consists in teaching patients various techniques aimed at correcting those respiratory patterns thought to elicit or sustain panic attacks |
| mr | Progressive/applied muscle relaxation | Progressive muscle relaxation is aimed at reducing general tension and achieving a body state that lowers the risk for stressors to provoke a panic attack (Bernstein & Borkovec, 1973). In the so-called applied relaxation (Ost, 1987), relaxation training and exposure are combined |
| cr | Cognitive restructuring | Psychotherapeutic process of learning to identify and modify irrational or maladaptive thoughts (such as catastrophic misinterpretation of bodily sensations) using strategies such as Socratic questioning, thought recording and guided imagery |
| ine | Interoceptive exposure | Graded exposure to bodily sensations that accompany panic |
| ive | In vivo exposure | Graded exposure to real-life situations perceived as threatening |
| vre | Virtual reality exposure | Graded exposure to virtual reality simulations reproducing real-life situations perceived as threatening |
| 3w | Third wave components | Various techniques aimed at helping patients to develop more adaptive emotional responses to situations, such as the ability to observe symptomatic processes without overly identifying with them or without reacting to them in ways that cause further distress (Roemer et al. 2008) |
| ftf | Face-to-face setting | Administration of therapeutic components in a face-to-face setting (rather than through self-help means) |
Group format was not considered a component because in a previous review and NMA comparing various psychological therapies for the treatment of panic disorder (Pompoli et al, 2016), we did not detect any association between the relative treatment effects and the difference of therapy delivery (individual v. group) format.