Primary Care Peer-Supported Internet-Mediated Psychological Treatment for Adults With Anxiety Disorders: Mixed Methods Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The effect of internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT) on anxiety in adults is well-known. However, patient dropouts and poor adherence to treatment are common. Feelings of belonging and empowerment from the treatment might be key to the completion of iCBT. Peer support workers are people with a personal experience of mental health problems, trained to provide professional support to people who require mental health care. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to assess patient experiences; the feasibility, safety, and acceptability; and preliminary effectiveness on anxiety and depression, empowerment, and adherence to treatment in an 8-week peer-supported iCBT program for patients with anxiety disorders treated in primary care. METHODS: This was a single-arm mixed methods feasibility study. Participants were patients referred to a central unit for iCBT in primary care. Quantitative data were collected pre-, post-, and 3 months postintervention. Qualitative data were collected through semistructured interviews. RESULTS: A total of 9 participants completed the quantitative outcome assessment. Statistically significant improvements were observed in perceived empowerment at a 3-month follow-up, and significant decreases in anxiety, depression, and psychological distress at the end of the treatment were maintained at a 3-month follow-up. In total, 8 of the 9 patients showed improvement in the severity of their symptoms of anxiety. Adherence to treatment was good among the participants. No serious adverse events were reported. Eight participants were enrolled in the qualitative analysis. The qualitative results showed 3 main themes: (1) real contact in an online world, (2) empowering experiences, and (3) being behind the wheel. Qualitative results largely emphasized the personal relationship and supported the acceptability of adding peer support to iCBT. CONCLUSIONS: Peer support in digital treatment seems to be a safe and acceptable intervention. The preliminary results suggest the effectiveness of peer support on patient empowerment, anxiety, depression, psychological distress, and adherence to treatment. The results indicate the need for future studies to evaluate the effect of adding peer support to iCBT in larger randomized controlled trials.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.015 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".