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Psychiatric Quarterly
Published in: Psychiatric Quarterly 4/2018

01-12-2018 | Review Article

Are Digitally Delivered Psychological Interventions for Depression the Way Forward? A Review

Authors: Evgenia Stefanopoulou, David Lewis, Matthew Taylor, James Broscombe, Javid Ahmad, Jan Larkin

Published in: Psychiatric Quarterly | Issue 4/2018

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Abstract

Digitally delivered interventions aim to make psychological treatments more widely accessible and minimize clinician input. Although their clinical efficacy against wait-list, control conditions is well established, comparative outcome studies are a much better way to examine if psychotherapies are equally effective. Such reviews are still relatively lacking. The aim of this review was therefore to evaluate the effectiveness of digitally delivered psychological therapies over traditionally delivered (face-to-face) ones to alleviate symptoms in adults experiencing sub-threshold and clinical depression. Findings showed that digital interventions produced consistently clinically significant improvements in depressive symptoms. Moreover, the level of therapist contact or expertise did not affect much treatment effectiveness. Future research is pertinent to investigate further the influence of therapist input, the reasons for dropout, how to improve users’ experience and therapeutic engagement and maintain improvements at post-treatment.
Footnotes
1
For purposes of clarity, digital interventions in this article refer to interventions delivered through technology, including CDROM, internet and mobile devices.
 
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Metadata
Title
Are Digitally Delivered Psychological Interventions for Depression the Way Forward? A Review
Authors
Evgenia Stefanopoulou
David Lewis
Matthew Taylor
James Broscombe
Javid Ahmad
Jan Larkin
Publication date
01-12-2018
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Psychiatric Quarterly / Issue 4/2018
Print ISSN: 0033-2720
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6709
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-018-9576-5

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