Question:
For people with seasonal or non-seasonal depression, how effective is light therapy compared with any other or no intervention in improving all patient outcomes?
Answer:
Plain language summary
Bright white light therapy shows promise for people with
seasonal depression but we don't have enough high-quality evidence
to advise its use as standard. For people with non-seasonal
depression, there is stronger evidence for using light therapy
alongside antidepressant medication than by itself, but again more
evidence is needed before recommending it as a treatment.
Clinical and research implications
No definite clinical implications may be made based on the
evidence included in this BEST summary. In terms of further
research directions, in one of the reviews included in this
summary, it was suggested that there is a need to identify
subgroups of non-seasonal depressed patients who may respond to
light therapy better than others; the selection of these subgroups
could be based on studies of patients with seasonal affective
disorder, or by their daily cyclical (chronobiological)
characteristics.
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