Browsing by Author "Mikkola, Sini"

Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder, which impairs one's daily life on areas of life quality and functioning. In a large proportion of the patients, the disorder remains unrecognized and untreated, although seeking help from health care is quite common among people with panic disorder. Issues with accessibility to therapy can set barriers to receiving mental health care. In addition to face-to-face therapy, internet-based cognitive behavioral therapies (iCBT) have been developed, and they are also available in Finland and have been developed by HUS. The implementation and research of internet-based therapies have mostly been focused on cognitive behavioral therapy, which is known to be effective in treating panic disorder. The aim of this literature review is to get an overview of iCBT's usability in treating panic disorder by examining the effectiveness and efficiency of treatment and the importance of support in the treatment outcome. Literature search was collected from the OvidMedline and Pubmed databases in February 2021 using combinations of the keywords panic disorder, iCBT, self help, web-based, internet treatment, online therapy and computer-assisted therapy. Controlled randomized trials in which subjects were diagnosed with panic disorder and the treatment used cognitive behavioral internet-based therapy without face-to-face contact were included. Using these criteria, nine research articles were selected for the review. The studies presented in this review supported that internet-based cognitive behavioral therapies are useful in reducing panic symptom severity. Treatment results of the internet therapy did not differ statistically significantly when compared to the treatment results of face-to-face therapy. Receiving support from a therapist is also important during panic disorder internet therapy, but due to the heterogeneity of the studies selected for this review, no firm conclusions could be drawn about the optimal amount of support for treatment outcome and maintenance. In addition, the results of the studies provided support for the cost-effectiveness of internet-based treatment methods in treating panic disorder. Altogether, the results of this review provide evidence that the use of internet-based therapy as a treatment for panic disorder can help address the resource problem between the supply and demand of psychotherapy services, as it is equally effective and at the same time more cost-effective when compared to face-to-face therapy.