Internet in Clinical Psychology
This week, we studied Clinical Psychology on the Internet. So I would like to answer a question here:
Can psychological interventions delivered through the Internet as well?
According to what I have learned, the answer is YES!
I read Thiart et al.’s (2015) study, "Log In and Breathe out: Internet-based Recovery Training for Sleepless Employees with Work-Related Strain – Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial".
The Internet-based intervention, which called GET.ON Recovery, combined the available and well-established therapy CBT-I method and other techniques, such as MCT, which can recover stress from work.
The Internet-based intervention conducted online with six one-week sections. In the first week, participants learned the interconnection among sleep, detachment and recreational activities and were asked to plan their sleep hygiene rules and recreational activities in the following week. Additionally, they were asked to do a sleep diary to document their sleep efficiency. In the second week, participants learned about stimulus control and sleep restriction and then plan ahead their sleep schedule for the following week. In the third week, participants were asked to do some reflections on and keep the sleep restriction plan. Also, they were introduced "how to initiate closing time and foster detachment and sleep". In week four and five, participants learned about attention and rumination. And in the last session, participants learned about how to deal with significantly bad sleep.
The study found out that the intervention can significantly reduce sleep problem and help stressed employees foster recreational behavior and detachment from work.
I think one of the reasons that this Internet-based intervention was successful is that participants were able to participate in this intervention remotely and flexibly. In this way, it was easier for them to stay in an intervention for six weeks, which allowed them to provide more valid data to researchers.
