clinical psychology contemporary study for depression marked essay 18/20
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Course
Unit 5 - Clinical psychology
Institution
PEARSON (PEARSON)
marked essay on the contemporary study for unipolar depression - one of the choices of mental disorders in clinical psychology.
5 PEEL paragraphs and a conclusion
scored 18/20
Williams et al. (2013) evaluation (20)
One strength of Williams et al. (2013) is that the conclusions drawn can be applied to real-
life treatment of depression. Online CBM-I was found to be effective in treating symptoms of
depression and distress in just 1 week, with minimal effort from the participant as there was
no homework. Combined interventions of CBM-I and iCBT (internet cognitive behavioural
therapy) changed the negative appraisal of the participant, which in turn may have helped to
reduce other symptoms of depression as well. The fact that online therapy was evaluated as
easy, logical and good by participants means that CBM-I and iCBT can be effortlessly
completed by most people with depression. This will be beneficial to them given that they
may often experience loss of concentration and fatigue, therefore they may be able to
improve their depressive symptoms more easily with these easy and logical therapies. This
means that people with depression may be able to have immediate access to online
treatment for depression rather than waiting until a therapist is available. This is a strength
because patients with depression may be better able to address their debilitating symptoms
more easily, within the comfort of their homes and to improve the quality of life without much
effort. However, the study didn’t collect any information about long-term effectiveness of the
remote forms of CBT as the data gathered was mostly about the change in symptoms of the
participants just after 11 weeks after treatment. This could be problematic because patients
may only experience short-term improvement in their symptoms, but may then relapse. This
limits the effectiveness of iCBT and CBM-I.
One weakness of this study is that the findings have low generalizability. The aim was to test
the effectiveness of the remote forms of CBT, in particular if combined interventions of CBM-
I and iCBT would be effective in reducing symptoms of depression. The issue with this study
is that 67 participants were recruited from only Sydney and were then split into the treatment
group and the waiting list control group. This means that the findings about the effectiveness
of online CBT may only apply to the Sydney population since they may present their
symptoms of depression in a different way compared to others. This is a weakness as it
suggests that iCBT and CBM-I might only be effective for people in Sydney but not for all
people. On the other hand, it could be argued that online iCBT and CBM-I could work with
most of the patients with depression around the world, since it is known that they share
common symptoms such as fatigue and feelings of worthlessness and guilt. Therefore, if
iCBT and CBM-I helped to reduce these symptoms in the sample being tested in this study,
then it may be likely that these forms of therapy may also reduce symptoms in other patients
with depression.
One strength of this study is that it is reliable. Baseline measures were completed before
and after treatment to determine changes in depressive symptoms due to iCBT and CBM-I.
For example, primary measures included Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Patient
Health Questionnaire Depression Scale (PHQ-9). These questionnaires can be easily
replicated as they contained the same specific structure and order of questions about the
degree of depressive symptoms. This means that data on real life depression and the
effectiveness of iCBT and CBM-I can be collected. This is a strength as the questionnaires
can be replicated to determine whether depression may be treated with those therapies, so
the consistency of the findings can be checked for reliability. However, it is unclear whether
iCBT and CBM-I had the most impact on the symptoms of depression or whether they had
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