E-COMPARED: European-COMPARative Effectiveness research on online Depression

E-COMPARED aims to provide mental healthcare stakeholders with evidence-based information and recommendations about the clinical and cost-effectiveness of blended depression treatment. Comparative Effectiveness Research is conducted in nine European countries to determine what treatment works best, for whom, and under what circumstances. Current practice of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in routine and specialized mental healthcare is compared with ‘blended’ treatment for depression that combines internet, mobile technologies, and face-to-face interventions.

For E-COMPARED, eight pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trials on the treatment of depression will be conducted in different countries and different care settings. Four trails will be conducted in primary health care in the United Kingdom, Poland, Spain and Germany. In Switzerland, Sweden, France and The Netherlands, the trials will be organized in specialized health services.

Each trial will consist of a blended treatment condition and a treatment-as-usual (TAU) condition. Blended treatment entails a combination of internet and mobile-based and face-to-face interventions. For the blended intervention, an internet-based platform will be employed of similar Cognitive Behavioural Treatment (CBT) and monitoring components as in treatment-as-usual.

To achieve this, the E-COMPARED consortium pursues the following objectives:

Compare: To compare and evaluate current mental health policies and guidelines in Europe for both treatment-as-usual (TAU) and internet-based treatment for depression.

Synthesize: To synthesize current knowledge about the clinical and cost-effectiveness of internet-based depression treatment, as compared in controlled settings to treatment as usual.

Evaluate: To evaluate the clinical and cost-effectiveness of internet-based depression treatment as compared to TAU in routine primary healthcare and specialized mental health service centers.

Personalize: To predict which patient groups could benefit from internet-based treatment versus treatment as usual by intelligent modelling of individual patient characteristics.

Predict: To provide a macro-economic model that allows for calculating different scenarios, costs and levels of internet-based depression treatment implementation throughout Europe.

Recommend: To provide evidence-based recommendations and informing how internet-based depression treatment can be integrated into routine primary healthcare and outpatient specialized practices for depression treatment in the European Union.