Table 1.
Comparison of the original APA guidelines for identification of ‘well-established’ treatment studies, as described in (Chambless and Hollon 1998) (Left) with stricter criteria proposed for neurofeedback, including recommendations by Tolin et al. 2015 and others (Right). The stricter criteria were used in the present quantitative review for selection of ADHD treatment studies
| Original APA guidelines | Stricter guidelines used in this review |
|---|---|
| I: At least two good between- group design experiments demonstrating efficacy in one or more of the following ways: | I: Efficacy |
| A. Superior (based on statistical significance alone) to pill or psychological placebo or to another treatment |
A. For rating efficacy rely on a. Systematic review and meta-analysis (recent: last 2 years) b. Multi-centre Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) |
| B. Equivalent to an already established treatment in experiments with adequate statistical power, considered to be approximately 30 per group | B. Consider clinical significance (Remission) in addition to statistical significance (Cohen’s D) |
| C. Consider long-term efficacy in addition to short-term efficacy | |
| D. Statistical superiority to semi-active control groups or inert placebo | |
| E. Equivalence to already established treatment (active treatments) | |
| F. Consider bias via meta-analysis, e.g. publication bias | |
| OR | AND |
| II: A large series of single-case design experiments (N > 9) demonstrating efficacy. These experiments must have: | II: Effectiveness |
| A. Used good experimental designs and | A. Address generalization of research findings to non-research settings and diverse populations: Open-label studies |
| B. Compared the intervention to another treatment as in I A | B. Cohen’s D and Remission rates |
| C. Safety and Side-effect profile | |
| D. Cost–benefit analysis | |
| Further criteria for both I and II | |
| III: Experiments must be conducted with treatment manuals | III: Experiments must be conducted with treatment manuals. In relation to neurofeedback studies, this is operationalized to restrict selection to those studies employing standard protocols: TBR, SMR and SCP protocols (see text for detail) |
| IV: Characteristics of the client samples must be clearly specified | IV: Characteristics of the client samples must be clearly specified |
| V: Effects must have been demonstrated by at least two different investigators or investigating teams | V: Independent replication |