CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 25Digital Mental Health InterventionsPsychotherapy Techniques and ApplicationsMaternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum

Shape of change in internet based behavioral activation treatment for depression

Open access
O'Mahen, Heather A., Wilkinson, Esther, Bagnall, Kara, Richards, David A., Swales, Amanda·2017·Behaviour Research and Therapy
DOI 10.1016/j.brat.2017.05.011
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Shape of change, sudden gains and depression spikes were examined in an online 12-session Behavioral Activation (BA) treatment for depression. Client and therapist factors related to sudden gains were examined to investigate processes associated with outcome. Methods Participants were postpartum Women with Major Depressive Disorder (n=42) who received online BA supported in 30-minute telephone sessions by a mental health worker. Depression symptoms were assessed at each session and number of sessions completed were recorded by the online program. Therapist records were rated for client stressful life event and therapist concrete focus. A quadratic pattern provided the best fit with the data; a cubic pattern was a poor fit. Sudden gains, but not depression spikes, predicted lower depression scores at 17-week outcome. Women who had higher baseline social functioning, did not experience a stressful life event during therapy, and completed more online modules, but not more telephone sessions, were more likely to have a sudden gain. A concrete therapist focus was associated with sudden gains. These results extend research on trajectories of change and sudden gains to an online BA treatment and to postpartum depression, and suggest important client and therapist factors associated with sudden gains.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.brat.2017.05.011

Cites

17 of 17 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Activation as a process associated with therapeutic benefit has been widely reported in different populations.

    “Activation as a process associated with therapeutic benefit has been widely reported in different populations”

    From Patients´ and Therapists´ Reports of Psychotherapy Outcomes: Similarities and Differences (2023) · cites this paper as O'Mahen et al., 2017

    The Conclusion (p. 28) associates work on dysfunctional behavioral patterns during behavioral activation therapy with sudden symptom gains, supporting a link to therapeutic benefit. But this study concerns women receiving treatment for postnatal depression; it does not establish that activation as a beneficial process has been widely reported across different populations. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Monroe, S.M., Kupfer, D.J., & Frank, E.F. (1992). Life stress and treatment course of recurrent depression: Response during index episode. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 60, 718-724.
  2. Pascual-Leone, A., & Greenberg, L.S., (2007). Emotional processing in experiential therapy: Why 'the only way out is through.'. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 75, 875-997.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
O'Mahen, H. A., Wilkinson, E., Bagnall, K., Richards, D. A., & Swales, A.
Affiliations
  • King's College London (GB)
  • University of Exeter (GB)
ORCID
Venue
Behaviour Research and Therapy
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2017-08
Volume
95
Pages
107-116
ISSN
0005-7967 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.brat.2017.05.011
OpenAlex
W2614494022
Cited by
25
References
17
Citations by year
2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 2
FWCI
2.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Behaviour Research and Therapy (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Funders
  • National Institute for Health Research
  • Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care - Greater Manchester
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
Keywords
sudden gains, behavioral activation, online therapy, postpartum depression, major depressive disorder, telephone-delivered therapy, life events, social functioning, change trajectories, treatment outcome predictors
MeSH terms
Adult, Behavior Therapy, Depressive Disorder, Major, Major Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Social Support, Therapy, Computer-Assisted, Treatment Outcome, Depression, Postpartum, Internet

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review