Consensus statement on defining and measuring negative effects of Internet interventions

Research output: Journal contributionsScientific review articlesResearch

Authors

  • Alexander Rozental
  • Gerhard Andersson
  • Johanna Boettcher
  • David Daniel Ebert
  • Pim Cuijpers
  • Christine Knaevelsrud
  • Brjánn Ljótsson
  • Viktor Kaldo
  • Nickolai Titov
  • Per Carlbring
Internet interventions have great potential for alleviating emotional distress, promoting mental health, and enhancing well-being. Numerous clinical trials have demonstrated their efficacy for a number of psychiatric conditions, and interventions delivered via the Internet will likely become a common alternative to face-to-face treatment. Meanwhile, research has paid little attention to the negative effects associated with treatment, warranting further investigation of the possibility that some patients might deteriorate or encounter adverse events despite receiving best available care. Evidence from research of face-to-face treatment suggests that negative effects afflict 5–10% of all patients undergoing treatment in terms of deterioration. However, there is currently a lack of consensus on how to define and measure negative effects in psychotherapy research in general, leaving researchers without practical guidelines for monitoring and reporting negative effects in clinical trials. The current paper therefore seeks to provide recommendations that could promote the study of negative effects in Internet interventions with the aim of increasing the knowledge of its occurrence and characteristics. Ten leading experts in the field of Internet interventions were invited to participate and share their perspective on how to explore negative effects, using the Delphi technique to facilitate a dialog and reach an agreement. The authors discuss the importance of conducting research on negative effects in order to further the understanding of its incidence and different features. Suggestions on how to classify and measure negative effects in Internet interventions are proposed, involving methods from both quantitative and qualitative research. Potential mechanisms underlying negative effects are also discussed, differentiating common factors shared with face-to-face treatments from those unique to treatments delivered via the Internet. The authors conclude that negative effects are to be expected and need to be acknowledged to a greater extent, advising researchers to systematically probe for negative effects whenever conducting clinical trials involving Internet interventions, as well as to share their findings in scientific journals.
Original languageEnglish
JournalInternet Interventions
Volume1
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)12-19
Number of pages8
ISSN2214-7829
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.03.2014

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study was made possible by a generous grant from the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare ( FORTE 2013-1107 ). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Documents

DOI

Recently viewed

Researchers

  1. Franziska Stallmann

Publications

  1. Canopy structure influences arthropod communities within and beyond tree identity effects
  2. Jackson networks in nonautonomous random environments
  3. Evaluating the effectiveness of retention forestry to enhance biodiversity in production forests of Central Europe using an interdisciplinary, multi-scale approach
  4. Migration-Based Multilingualism in the English as a Foreign Language Classroom
  5. Theory-based course design for professional master's degree program in business engineering
  6. An Approach for Ex-Post-Facto Analysis of Knowledge Graph-Driven Chatbots – The DBpedia Chatbot
  7. The Framework for Inclusive Science Education
  8. Organizing for innovation through accelerators: An introduction
  9. Early Edema Detection Based on the Examination of Multidimensional Ultra-Wide band Data
  10. Petri net based EMIS-mappers for flexible manufacturing systems
  11. Grounds different from, though equally solid with
  12. A Multilevel CFA–MTMM Approach for Multisource Feedback Instruments
  13. Achieving enhanced mechanical properties in Mg-Gd-Y-Zn-Mn alloy by altering dynamic recrystallization behavior via pre-ageing treatment
  14. Exports and productivity: A survey of the evidence from firm-level data
  15. Extraction of information from invoices - challenges in the extraction pipeline
  16. Spatio-Temporal Convolution Kernels
  17. Magnesium-based metal matrix nanocomposites—processing and properties
  18. Elevated Temperature and Varied Load Response of AS41 at Bolted Joint
  19. Learning Analytics an Hochschulen
  20. The too-much-precision effect: When and why precise anchors backfire with experts
  21. Disentangling who is who during rhizosphere acidification in root interactions: combining fluorescence with optode techniques
  22. Infinite Mixtures of Markov Chains
  23. Agile Portfolio Management Patterns
  24. A tale of scale: Plot but not neighbourhood tree diversity increases leaf litter ant diversity
  25. Knowledge Spaces of Globalization
  26. The creation and analysis of employer-employee matched data, ed. by John C. Haltiwanger ...
  27. Early-Career Researchers’ Perceptions of the Prevalence of Questionable Research Practices, Potential Causes, and Open Science
  28. Towards Computer Simulations of Virtue Ethics
  29. Next level production networks
  30. Automated Fabrication of Elastomeric Prepregs for Soft Robotics Applications
  31. Bioassay-directed chemical analysis utilizing LC-MS: a tool for identifying estrogenic compounds in water samples?
  32. Conceptualizing sustainable consumption
  33. Trust in scientists, risk perception, conspiratorial beliefs, and unrealistic optimism
  34. Later Life Workplace Index: Validation of an English Version
  35. Simple measures and complex structures
  36. Knowledge retention from older and retiring workers
  37. Winning Ugly
  38. Big Data - Characterizing an Emerging Research Field using Topic Models
  39. Tree diversity promotes predator but not omnivore ants in a subtropical Chinese forest
  40. Reduction of capital tie up for assembly processes
  41. Perceptions of science, science communication, and climate change attitudes in 68 countries - the TISP dataset
  42. Do better pre-migration skills accelerate immigrants’ wage assimilation?
  43. Is Code Law? Kritik in Zeiten algorithmischer Gouvernementalität
  44. Introduction to Thinking the Problematic
  45. Fettflecken untersuchen mit Graphical Analysis
  46. "to expose, to show, to demonstrate, to inform, to offer. Artistic Practices around 1990"