Studying patients’ motivation and involvement

while practicing different types of Internet-delivered

therapies

Anastasiia ValjamaePhD student

Information Society TechnologiesSupervisor: Prof. David Lamas, Tallinn University

Co-supervisor: Prof. Gerhard Andersson, Linköping University

Introduction

• Depression problem

• Quick development of technologies: from CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) to iCBT

• Recent examples of internet-based courses: Beating the Blues (Ultrasis), Overcoming Depression: a five areas approach, FearFighter and Cope (ST Solutions), BT Steps, Calipso (Leeds Innovations), and Stresspac (University of Glasgow)

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Beating the Blues

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Theoretical framework

• Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) – aiming to change patterns of thinking or behavior that are behind people’s difficulties in order to change the way they feel

• Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) aiming to improve the communication patterns and the way people relate to others

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Starting point

• Experiments with cardio patients in the public hospital in Saint-Petersburg, Russia (tests on depression, aggression, general emotional state)

• Online therapies/Internet-delivered therapies v.s. traditional face-to-face treatment

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Overview

• Dominance of psychological approach, but not technological one

• Lack of comparison between user groups with different ethnical and cultural background and between software and computer interfaces in terms of most effective outcome (Kaltenthaler et al., 2002; Kaltenthaler et al., 2006)

• Practice only within the context of routine psychiatric care (Hedman et al., 2014) or use of guided iCBT (Wouter van Ballegooijen et al., 2014)

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Main goal

Identifying possible drawbacks of Internet-delivered therapy and creating set of

instruments that will increase its efficiency

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Research questions

• How can we increase patients’ motivation using either psychological or technological instruments ?

• What technological tools can cause the best results of the treatment (containing some video and audio materials or relying only on text exercises, simulating the presence of therapist or trying to escape this model)?

• What are the cultural differences in reaction to treatment?

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Methodology

• Patients from different countries: Estonia/Sweden/Russia

• Making profile of the patients • Pre-tests: Level of depression (The Beck Depression Inventory,

Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, Major Depression Inventory to determine the level of depression)

Learning style (VAK test)• Dividing patients into groups according to the results

of pre-tests 9

Methodology

• Considering two existing therapies based on CBT method, but using different instruments: Beating the Blues and iKapa

• Final tests and analysis

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First study

Saint-Petersburg Bekhterev Psychoneurological Research Institute

December 2015 – January 2016

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Expected results

• Defining advantages and disadvantages of the existing iCBT approaches

• Creating special (technological and psychological) instruments that can be more effective and universal

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Plan

1 year 2 year 3 year 4 yearLiterature overviewPreparing tools for experiments (translations, support materials, ethic materials)Experiments (Russia)Experiments (Estonia)Data analysisConference paperJournal paperWorking towards unified frameworkCreating special (technological and psychological) instruments to treat depression

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Thank you!