Digital cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) could be substantially beneficial for children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a study by Karolinska Institutet found.
First presented in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA, the study involved a three-year span of evaluation involved digital CBT among children and adolescents diagnosed with OCD. 152 participants were recruited as part of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
As a randomized clinical noninferiority trial, the study began in 2017 through mid-2019, with an average age of 13 and the majority of which were females.
The digital CBT program given to the participants yielded similarly as effective as in-person CBT for symptoms of OCD among children and adolescents.
According to the study’s authors: “Among children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder, treatment with an internet-delivered CBT program followed by in-person CBT if necessary compared with in-person CBT alone resulted in a non-inferior difference in symptoms at the 6-month follow-up.”
“Further research is needed to understand the durability and generalizability of these findings,” the authors determined.
