Assumptions Not Often Assessed or Satisfied in Published Mediation Analyses in Psychology and Psychiatry.

ABSTRACT: Mediation analysis aims to investigate the mechanisms of action behind the effects of interventions or treatments. Given the history and common use of mediation in mental health research, we conducted this review to understand how mediation analysis is implemented in psychology and psychiatry and whether analyses adhere to, address, or justify the key underlying assumptions of their approaches. All articles (n = 206) were from top academic psychiatry or psychology journals in the PsycInfo database and were published in English from 2013 to 2018. Information extracted from each article related to study design, covariates adjusted for in the analysis, temporal ordering of variables, and the specific method used to perform the mediation analysis. In most studies, underlying assumptions were n

SUBMITTER: Stuart EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8900288 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature