Outcomes for treatment for anxiety and depression
Published
1. Main facts and figures
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between April 2022 and March 2023, over 60% of patients in every ethnic group showed an improvement after treatment for anxiety or depression
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67.3% of white British patients showed an improvement – the highest percentage out of all ethnic groups, followed by 67.2% of patients in the white ‘other’ ethnic group
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61.1% of patients from the Bangladeshi ethnic group showed an improvement – the lowest percentage out of all ethnic groups
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in most ethnic groups, women were more likely to have shown an improvement than men
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among women, patients from the white ‘other’ (67.8%) ethnic group were the most likely out of all ethnic groups to have shown an improvement
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women from the Bangladeshi (8.2%) and the any ‘other’ (8.1%) ethnic groups were the most likely to have deteriorated
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between April 2015 and March 2023, the percentage of patients showing an improvement increased in every ethnic group
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the biggest increase was in the Asian ‘other’ ethnic group (up from 55.2% to 63.5%)
2. Things you need to know
What the data measures
The data shows the percentage of patients who improved, deteriorated or showed no change after being treated for anxiety or depression through the NHS Talking Therapies programme.
The data covers NHS referrals that ended in each financial year covered (for example, April 2022 to March 2023).
Patients complete health and anxiety questionnaires at the start and end of their treatment. Their responses are used to assess the outcome of their treatment.
A patient has shown 'reliable improvement' if there is both:
- a reliable decrease in one or both of the scores
- no reliable increase in either of them
The data mainly covers adult referrals, but a small number of under-18s are also referred.
Percentages are rounded to 1 decimal place, but are worked out using unrounded figures. In the data file, numerator and denominator values are rounded to the nearest 5 for geographies other than England.
Not included in the data
Data based on fewer than 5 patients is not included. This is to protect people’s confidentiality.
The percentage of referrals with an unknown outcome is not shown, so not all percentages for the 3 outcomes add up to 100%.
The ethnic groups used in the data
Data is shown for the 16 ethnic groups used in the 2001 Census.
The data only includes patients whose ethnicity was known. This was 93% of patients in the year to March 2023.
Methodology
Read the detailed methodology document for the data on this page.
In the data file
See Download the data for:
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data for clinical commissioning groups – some data is not included if it is based on a small number of patients
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data showing percentages by gender and ethnicity
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data showing percentages over time
3. By ethnicity
| Ethnicity | Reliably improved | No reliable change | Reliably deteriorated |
|---|---|---|---|
| % | % | % | |
| Asian | 63.2 | 27.7 | 7.6 |
| Bangladeshi | 61.1 | 28.6 | 8.6 |
| Indian | 64.8 | 26.9 | 7.0 |
| Pakistani | 61.5 | 28.6 | 8.0 |
| Asian other | 63.5 | 27.2 | 7.6 |
| Black | 66.0 | 25.9 | 6.7 |
| Black African | 66.2 | 25.4 | 6.8 |
| Black Caribbean | 65.9 | 26.2 | 6.7 |
| Black other | 65.1 | 26.9 | 6.1 |
| Mixed | 63.7 | 27.9 | 6.8 |
| Mixed White/Asian | 65.1 | 27.4 | 6.2 |
| Mixed White/Black African | 64.1 | 27.2 | 7.2 |
| Mixed White/Black Caribbean | 63.1 | 28.6 | 6.7 |
| Mixed other | 63.3 | 27.8 | 7.2 |
| White | 67.3 | 25.6 | 5.6 |
| White British | 67.3 | 25.7 | 5.6 |
| White Irish | 66.1 | 26.4 | 5.9 |
| White other | 67.2 | 25.1 | 6.4 |
| Other including Chinese | 62.1 | 27.6 | 8.2 |
| Chinese | 65.9 | 26.4 | 6.4 |
| Any other | 61.2 | 27.8 | 8.6 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV)
4. Data sources
Source
Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) dataset
Type of data
Administrative data
Type of statistic
Official statistics
Publisher
NHS England
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
The data is used to monitor and improve the provision of talking therapies services for the treatment of people with anxiety, depression or both.
5. Download the data
This file contains the following: measure, ethnicity, ethnicity_type, time, time_type, geography, geography_type, geography_code, outcome, outcome_type, gender, value, value_type, numerator, denominator