A Freely Accessible, Anonymous Online Treatment for Social Anxiety: Protocol for a Partially Randomized Patient Preference Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Many people with mental health problems do not receive the care they need. Digital mental health interventions have been shown to be effective in many trials and offer a promising way to reach more people in need. However, their uptake and use remain limited, in part due to concerns about data privacy. However, these concerns may not be equally significant for all users. OBJECTIVE: This trial aims to evaluate the efficacy of an anonymous online self-help tool for social anxiety that processes no personal data and has some disadvantages in terms of usability compared to an otherwise identical, nonanonymous evidence-based tool. Furthermore, the trial will investigate user preferences regarding the 2 program versions and evaluate the impact of these preferences on treatment outcomes. METHODS: In this partially randomized patient preference trial, 2 versions (anonymous vs nonanonymous) of the same previously researched program will be compared among 452 participants with increased levels of social anxiety. Half of the participants will be randomized to one of the program versions, whereas the other half will be assigned to their preferred version. The primary outcome is social anxiety symptoms. Secondary outcomes include depression, stigma of mental illness, and quality of life. RESULTS: Recruitment started in September 2024. As of the date of manuscript submission in May 2025, over 350 participants have been included in the study. Recruitment ended in September 2025, and results are expected to be available and published in 2026. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this trial will determine whether anonymously accessible interventions, which could easily be made freely available, are less efficacious than their nonanonymous counterparts and will explore the impact of user preferences on treatment outcomes. The findings could contribute to making digital interventions more accessible and tailoring interventions to individual preferences. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06465589; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06465589. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/77573.
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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 | 0.041 | 0.039 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.005 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.008 | 0.009 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.102 | 0.017 |
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".