Designing therapeutic application and studying efficacy of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy to people with obsessive-compulsive disorder: Study protocol

Abstract

Technology-based therapies are among the types of interventions which have been trending in the past few decades to help patients in psychological health sector. The most effective therapy for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) with an emphasis on exposure and response prevention. It is a grounded fact that half of the clients do not benefit from proper therapy results due to ignoring common mistakes in ERP. In the present research, it is aimed to provide therapy over the internet using a therapeutic mobile application which presents a complete therapy plan and is available to OCD patients. The proposed study is a Randomized Control Trial (RCT). First, a therapeutic application based on CBT is designed as a therapeutic tool for the time between the therapy sessions. Next, CBT therapy sessions are held with the therapist being present via video calls during the whole session. From one session to another, the therapist is in touch with participants through the application. The control group receives CBT as usual intervention. Finally, participants are evaluated both at the end of the intervention and after 6 months. Mixed-design Analysis of Variance is used to analyze the data. The outcomes of this proposed study can provide basic results on the effectiveness of technology-based therapy, especially internet therapy with a present therapist as well as the effect of application therapy in improving the quality of therapy and extending therapies to OCD for the researchers of this domain.