Working alliance and symptom reduction in E-health and face-to-face treatment of youth with mooddisorders.

Lucertis developed a combined E-health and face-to-face treatment module for
youth between 13-20 with mood disorders. E-health is coming up and more and
more important in youth treatment. There is not a lot of scientific support,
although there are some studies that show E-health treatment can be effective
for affective disorders.
There is a lot of evidence for the importance of a good working alliance and
the positive influence on treatmenteffect. The question is if it is possible to
get a working alliance in Ehealth as strong as in the face-to-face treatment.
This has not been studied for the group of depressed youth.

We expect that in the blended treatment the working alliance will be less
strong than in face-to-face treatment. We also expect that the stronger the
working alliance, the bigger the reduction of symptoms will be.

Is there a difference in how youth experience the working alliance between the
group treated with blended E-health and the group treated as usual (all
face-to-face sessions)?

Does the reduction of symptoms correlate with how patient experience the
working alliance in both the blended E-health group and the care-as-usual
group?

Experimenal design with randomisation of patients in two treatment conditions
(blended E-health and care-as-usual).
In the first sessions patients fill in a questionnaire about mooddisorder
symptoms. In de fourth sessions they fill in a questionnaire about working
alliance. In de 10th session they fill in questionnaires about mooddisorder
symptoms and working alliance.
We compare within and between the groups.

The burden for patients is low because they only have to fill in some short
questionnaires.