The Effect of a Brief Online Behavioral Activation Intervention

Depression is a worldwide phenomena that has a severe personal, social and societal impact. One such impact is an over $200 billion worldwide economic cost. While many treatments exist for depression, many individuals may not receive the support that they need for reasons such as stigma, financial restraints, or limited access to therapists. As such, it is important to assess the efficacy of brief online treatments as an alternative to full length, in-person treatments. A series of studies looking at a brief behavioral activation for depression treatment has shown that participants have reported temporarily improved mood, confidence, motivation and reduced depressive symptoms. It is important to test this treatment in multiple groups of people to acquire additional information regarding brief online interventions. This study seeks to collect participants from online social media sources and compare results to historical data that were collected from a prior research study which used Amazon Mechanical Turk as a recruitment source.