The Effect of Intervention on Episodic Future Thinking: A Meta-analysis

Episodic future thinking (EFT) has important functions in people’s daily life and was found to be impaired in patients with psychiatric diseases. Studies have been carried out to improve EFT, while results were mixed. The present study aimed to conduct a meta-analysis to examine the overall effect of intervention on EFT, and potential moderators.

A literature search was performed in the PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, and EBSCO databases to identify relevant studies that were published up to June 18, 2024. Controlled intervention studies, pre-post studies, and case series studies were included. We focused on studies recruiting participants aged 16 or higher.

A total of 30 studies involving 1881 participants were included. Results showed that most of the included studies used cognitive intervention. Intervention improved overall EFT, with a medium to large effect size [SMD = 0.61, 95% CI (0.49, 0.72), I² = 57.16%]. The effect was still significant at follow-up, with a near medium effect size [SMD = 0.46, 95% CI (0.19, 0.72), I² = 58.16%]. Moderator and meta-regression analyses showed that length of training (p = 0.775), type of participants (p = 0.798), and mean age of participants (p = 0.826) were not associated with the intervention effect.

The present meta-analysis indicates that cognitive intervention had a positive effect on EFT, and the improvements could be maintained at follow-up. But no significant moderators were found. Further studies are needed to identify more effective and individualized interventions to improve EFT.