Implementation of a Psychological Online Intervention for Low to Moderate Depression in Primary Health Care: a Study Protocol

Depression is highly prevalent in primary care. Meta-analysis show that pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy are effective. Given the high cost of face-to-face psychotherapy, alternative procedures of psychotherapy delivery have been proposed, emphasizing the use of technologies like the Internet. Several studies demostrated the effectiveness of Internet-based psychological interventions in primary care. Once established the efficacy and cost-effectiveness, the next step is the implementation of such programs in routine clinical practise. Literature indicates that there is a gap between the validation of evidence-based interventions and their use in routine practice of around 20 years. The science of implementation has developed procedures to reduce such gap. The objective of this study is to carry out an implementation study with a hybrid design to determine the impact of the intervention (Smiling is Fun) in terms of health outcomes and feasibility of the implementation. Participants will adopt the framework proposed by Hermes et al., inspired in Proctor's recommendations. The study will be conducted in Andalucia, Aragon and Baleares. It is hypothesized that it will be feasible to implement a psychological intervention supported by ICTs in the context of primary care for the treatment of mild-moderate depression. Furthermore, specific hypothesis are established; 1) the intervention will be effective after six months of completion of treatment (efficacy measure: PHQ9), 2) the psychological intervention applied through ICTs in primary care will be cost-effective, 3) the acceptability of the intervention will be high by the agents involved: patients, professionals and administrators (results of interviews and focus groups), this acceptability will also be high with regarding the usability of the designed computer system (measured by the System Usability Scale), 4) the data about the use of the platform by patients and professionals will demonstrate that the intervention is adopted, feasible, and high fidelity (modules and tasks completed) and 5) the adequacy of the ICT-supported intervention perceived by professionals, patients andadministrators will be elevated (NoMAD questionnaire and results of interviews and focus groups).The final goal of this study is to demonstrate the feasibility of using the online intervention in order to guarantee that the investment in efficacy research lead to a better care in routine clinical practice and an improvement in public health.