This review was recently published by Hedman-Lagerlöf and colleagues in the high-impact scientific journal “World Psychiatry”.

Some highlights:

• This was an update, including new studies until 2022. The review summarizes results from 31 studies comparing Internet CBT directly with face-to-face therapy, including data from over 3.000 treated patients.
• Internet CBT has now been benchmarked against face-to-face therapy for the most common psychiatric conditions, including, depression, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder and insomnia, as well as somatic conditions such as tinnitus and fibromyalgia. For some fairly common conditions, however, no such direct comparisons are available yet, including generalized anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder.
• The authors conclude: “The results indicate that the two treatment formats yield similar symptomatic improvement across all study populations.” In other words, when tested, CBT via the internet has been as effective as traditional in-person therapy.

Read the full text here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wps.21088

Reference

Hedman-Lagerlöf, E., Carlbring, P., Svärdman, F., Riper, H., Cuijpers, P. and Andersson, G. (2023), Therapist-supported Internet-based cognitive behaviour therapy yields similar effects as face-to-face therapy for psychiatric and somatic disorders: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis. World Psychiatry, 22: 305-314. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.21088

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