Prinicipal Investigators:
Untreated depression accounts for more than 11% of the world total disease burden. Depression is associated with up to 60% of suicide deaths, deteriorating health, and social problems. Most affected individuals are not receiving adequate treatment. The long-term objective of this project is to address the issue of untreated depression by developing and evaluating an effective Web-based intervention for depression, available at no cost and in multiple languages to depressed and dysphoric individuals anywhere in the world.
The current project is the first step towards that goal. We have developed a self-contained, interactive, modular, Web-based self-help intervention for depression. The intervention is based on cognitive-behavioral therapy, an empirically supported treatment for depression. Participants from the Internet community are invited to sign up for a customized eight-lesson intervention. This is a proof-of-concept study, with the goal of assessing the degree of interest in and the demand for Web interventions, and to obtain initial information about the effectiveness of this intervention.