Towards fully automated psychotherapy for adults:
BAS - Behavioral Activation via mobile phone and internet
A pilot study

Most depressive disorders are treated by general practitioners and
psychologists in primary care. Although internet-based self-help has been
proven to be an effective alternative for face-to-face treatment, several
studies have shown that these interventions are only effective when
professional therapists help patients to work through the treatment. However,
in the current project, a collaboration between clinical psychological and
artificial intelligence researchers, we are developing an internet intervention
which is supported by an internet-connected smart-phone, which will guide the
patient through the intervention, instead of a therapist. The type of
intervention we will use (activity scheduling, also called behavioral
activation treatment) has been shown to be effective in many earlier studies,
and can also be expected to be effective as an unguided internet + smart-phone
intervention.

We would like to test the system in a pilot study with vulonteers with mild
depressive symptoms. The goals of this pilot are twofold:
1) We want to know how easy to use the system is and how content the volunteers
are with this form of treatment en support.
2) We would like to get an idea of the effects of the intervention, mostly
whether the volunteers show less symptoms of depression after undergoing the
intervention.

In this pilot we want to perform a randomised controlled trial. The
participants will be randomly distributed over an intervention group and a
control group that will be put on a waiting list. This last group will undergo
the intervention after three months.

The intervention group will follow the course which is based on behavioral
activation therapy. The course consists of 5 parts that can be executed via a
webiste and a mobile phone application. During the intervention, the
participants learn techniques to monitor their mood and daily activities and to
learn the relationship between these two. Then, the participants learn to make
a plan to increase the number of pleasant activities and with that to have more
social interation with their environment.

Participants will fill out a questionnaire three time. The burden of the course
is very low: the course consists mainly of planning more pleasant activities.
There are no risks involved.