Internet‐delivered psychological treatments: from innovation to implementation
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Implication
Narrative review demonstrates the efficacy of therapist-guided internet cognitive behavioral therapy across psychiatric disorders, indicating strong potential alongside face-to-face care.
Key Points
- To review the 20-year evidence base, clinical efficacy, adverse effects, and real-world implementation challenges of internet-delivered psychological treatments, particularly cognitive behavior therapy.
- Synthesized two decades of clinical research on therapist-guided and self-guided internet-delivered cognitive behavior therapy across psychiatric and somatic conditions.
- Evaluated direct comparative trials against waiting-list controls and conventional face-to-face psychological care, alongside adverse effect profiles and therapeutic change mechanisms.
- Therapist-guided internet-delivered cognitive behavior therapy achieves superior clinical improvements compared to waiting-list controls for depression and anxiety, with effects matching face-to-face therapy.
- Negative effects and clinical deterioration occur in a minority of patients at rates consistent with traditional face-to-face therapy and lower than inactive controls.
- Implementation barriers persist, with clinicians and patients showing greater acceptance toward blended therapy models that combine digital tools with in-person sessions rather than fully remote programs.
Cite This Study
Andersson et al. (2019) studied this question.