Design of Psycho-educational Web-Based Interventions for People with Mental Disorders: a Systematic Review

Abstract

Web-based interventions have the potential to educate persons with mental disorders. But the effects of these interventions on the patient’s symptoms and psychological outcomes and also design features of these interventions are not often explicitly described. The purpose of this study is to systematically present the overall effects and design features of psycho-educational web-based mental health interventions. A systematic search in PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library from January 1990 to January 2020 was conducted. To capture relevant studies, two reviewers independently reviewed and assessed titles and abstracts of the papers against predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria with three groups of keywords addressing mental health, psycho-education, and online intervention. Eligible studies were systematically reviewed on the basis of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The risk of bias was assessed by using the Jadad tool for methodological quality. For analyzing the results, a combination of frequency and descriptive synthesis was used. From 2227 studies initially identified, 20 studies met all inclusion criteria. Depression disorders with 40% had the highest web-based intervention. In terms of outcome, 70% of included studies had positive effects on symptoms. Also 60% of included studies improved psychological outcomes. In terms of design features, most of included studies had program exposure (100%), social context and support (60%), information architecture (55%), and self-management (50%) features. The infrequent features were contacts with intervention (40%), usability (25%), updated information (20%), and tailoring and targeting (15%). The results of this study showed that program exposure, social context and support, information architecture, and self-management features could influence the effectiveness of a web-based mental health intervention. This review will be helpful for researchers and clinicians as a guide to develop more effective psycho-educational web-based interventions for people with mental disorders.