Suitability, Clinical Utility and Acceptability of an Online Transdiagnostic Intervention for Emotional Disorders and Stress-related Disorders in Mexican Sample: A Randomized Clinical Trial

In recent decades, research findings indicate that cognitive-behavioral interventions, from a disorder-specific perspective, have shown great empirical support and constitute the first-line treatment for anxiety and depression care. However, these treatments are little used. In this regard, various reasons have been noted that explain the limited access and lack of availability to effective interventions; a minority of people actively seek psychological care due to their own condition of emotional distress, for fear of social stigma, for geographical reasons that separate them from health centers, for reasons of time, preference for another type of treatment or self -help, by the high cost of psychological support, which makes it inaccessible and unaffordable for both the user and the public health system. Likewise, it has been exposed that comorbidity between mental disorders, as well as the gap between research findings and clinical practice, could influence the little dissemination of effective treatments; which leads to a lack of up-to-date professionals who provide relevant interventions. Emotional dysregulation of negative affect has been found to be a study factor that is providing relevant data for a better understanding and approach to emotional disorders from a transdiagnostic perspective, a term coined from a dimensional conception to designate effective treatments aimed at two or more specific disorders. Thus, transdiagnostic treatments could help to overcome the drawbacks related to comorbidity between disorders. Now, technological progress has generated alternatives for psychological assistance, both for the evaluation and for the treatment of different emotional disorders. In this regard, the possibilities offered by technologies are highlighted; since the intervention programs supported by the Internet have been empirically tested to achieve effectiveness and efficiency / cost-benefit, and can be key to guaranteeing access to those who the interventions are inaccessible. Thus, the present study has the purpose of knowing the indicators of suitability, clinical utility and satisfaction of the transdiagnostic intervention via videoconferencing for the treatment of emotional disorders and those derived from stress and trauma.

Hypothesis

• The transdiagnostic intervention program via the internet will reduce symptoms of anxiety / depression and / or comorbid acute stress compared to a cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) group and a waiting list group.
• The transdiagnosis intervention program via internet will show statistical gains in the reduction of symptoms of anxiety / depression and / or acute stress, and a clinically significant improvement greater than the CBT intervention program and the waiting list group.
• There will be a higher acceptance / satisfaction index reported by the participants in the transdiagnostic intervention program via the internet compared to the CBT intervention and with the group without treatment.
• It will be found that emotional regulation functions as moderating variables of clinical change.
• The changes will be maintained for three and six months after the end of the transdiagnosis intervention program.