ClinicalTrials.Veeva

Menu

Internet-based CBT vs. TAU for Stress-related Disorders

Karolinska Institute logo

Karolinska Institute

Status

Completed

Conditions

Adjustment Disorders
Exhaustion Disorder

Treatments

Behavioral: Internet-based structured treatment-as-usual
Behavioral: Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT04797273
ICBT vs TAU for Stress

Details and patient eligibility

About

Stress-related mental illness is common and one of the main causes of sick leave in Sweden. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is a promising treatment, but access to treatment is low. In a previously conducted study, we found that internet-based CBT in comparison to a waitlist control group was effective in reducing symptoms of stress. The aim of the present study is to take the next step and compare Internet-based CBT for stress-related disorders to an active control condition.

Full description

Non traumatic stress-related mental illness, in this study operationalized as adjustment disorder or exhaustion disorder, is highly prevalent in the general population and associated with high societal costs relating to productivity loss. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is the most well-studied psychological treatment and has demonstrated promising effects in terms of symptom reduction. The overall evidence-base for CBT for these disorders is however fairly week and access to treatment is low. In a previously published randomized controlled trial we found that internet-based CBT can yield large effects on core symptoms of stress for these disorders. Delivering CBT via the internet has the large advantage of enabling increased accessibility as each therapist can have up to 80 patients in ongoing treatment. In the previously conducted trial we compared the treatment to a waitlist control and between-group comparisons of treatment effects were only done at post-treatment as the waitlist condition was crossed over to treatment after this time point. It is now therefore important to take the next step and investigate the effects of internet-based CBT in comparison to an active control condition. The primary aim of this study was to compare two internet-based treatments, CBT vs. structured treatment-as-usual, for adjustment disorder and exhaustion disorder.

Enrollment

300 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 65 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

  • primary adjustment disorder or exhaustion disorder
  • regular access to a computer and to the internet
  • ability to read and write in swedish

Exclusion criteria

  • substance abuse in the past 6 months
  • lifetime psychosis or bipolar disorder
  • suicide risk
  • initiated or changed psychopharmacological treatment for depression or anxiety in the past month
  • concurrent psychological treatment
  • cognitive behavior therapy for stress-related symptoms in the past year.

Trial design

Primary purpose

Treatment

Allocation

Randomized

Interventional model

Parallel Assignment

Masking

None (Open label)

300 participants in 2 patient groups

Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy
Experimental group
Treatment:
Behavioral: Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy
Internet-based structured treatment-as-usual
Active Comparator group
Treatment:
Behavioral: Internet-based structured treatment-as-usual

Trial contacts and locations

1

Loading...

Data sourced from clinicaltrials.gov

Clinical trials

Find clinical trialsTrials by location
© Copyright 2026 Veeva Systems