Internet-mediated, protocol-driven treatment of psychological dysfunction

An Internet system was developed for assessing psychopathology, for on-line , protocol-driven cognitive-behavioural psychological treatment and for mea suring the effects of treatment. The system focused on the treatment of pos t-traumatic stress. The treatment comprised 10 writing sessions (45 min eac h) over five weeks. Participants were assessed on-line before treatment, af ter treatment and after six-week follow-up. After treatment the participant s had improved significantly in terms of post-traumatic stress symptoms (P< 0.005) and general psychological functioning (P<0.005), and this was sustai ned during the follow-up. Nineteen of the 20 participants were clinically r ecovered after treatment. Reduction in post-traumatic stress symptoms compa red favourably to changes in control and experimental groups in trials of s imilar but face-to-face treatment.