Digital interventions for the treatment of depression: A meta-analytic review.

Abstract

The high global prevalence of depression, together with the recent acceleration of remote care owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, has prompted increased interest in the efficacy of digital interventions for the treatment of depression. We provide a summary of the latest evidence base for digital interventions in the treatment of depression based on the largest study sample to date. A systematic literature search identified 83 studies (N = 15,530) that randomly allocated participants to a digital intervention for depression versus an active or inactive control condition. Overall heterogeneity was very high (I 2 = 84%). Using a random-effects multilevel metaregression model, we found a significant medium overall effect size of digital interventions compared with all control conditions (g = .52). Subgroup analyses revealed significant differences between interventions and different control conditions (WLC: g = .70; attention: g = .36; TAU: g = .31), significantly higher effect sizes in interventions that involved human therapeutic guidance (g = .63) compared with self-help interventions (g = .34), and significantly lower effect sizes for effectiveness trials (g = .30) compared with efficacy trials (g = .59). We found no significant difference in outcomes between smartphone-based apps and computer-and Internet-based intervenproofreading the article and Arne Lutsch and Franziska Wegner for their support with the updated literature search and data extraction.A file containing all extracted data used in the current meta-analysis can be downloaded from the following link: https://osf.io/us4f5/?view_only= 58dc3441f27f44f283df5f8602af82f9.

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