Effectiveness of Guided Internet-Based Cognitive Behavior Therapy in Regular Clinical Settings

Therapist-guided internet-based cognitive behavior therapy (ICBT) has been tested in numerous controlled trials conducted in research settings. It is now established that this novel treatment format works for a range of clinical conditions. It is less well known if the promising results from efficacy studies can be transferred to routine clinical practice. In this paper we review the evidence from effectiveness studies and highlight challenges when implementing ICBT. Following literature searches we identified 4 controlled trials and 8 open studies, involving a total of 3,888 patients. There is now an increasing number of effectiveness studies on ICBT with studies on panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, tinnitus, and irritable bowel syndrome. All indicate that it is possible to transfer ICBT to clinical practice with sustained effects and moderate to large effect sizes. However, it is not clear which model to use for service delivery, and more work remains to be done on dissemination of ICBT. Moreover, the knowledge about outcome predictors from controlled efficacy trials is probably less relevant, and studies with large clinically representative samples are needed to investigate for which patients ICBT is suitable. In this work existing data could be combined and reanalyzed to study predictors of outcome.