topic 3 - Young (2007) CBT with Internet Addicts: Treatment Outcomes and Implications Flashcards
what is the background of the study?
internet addiction has been seen as a mental problem in recent years, which means that little is known about how to treat internet addicts. Young has seen how effective CBT is used to treat many other types of addiction and she wanted to see if it was possible to apply the CBT as a treatment of internet addiction.
what is the aim of the study?
the aim is to investigate the effect of using the CBT as a treatment for internet addiction and to see how the patients behaviour improved over time during the therapy and after the therapy sessions.
what is the procedure?
114 participants were recruited from the centre of online addiction which is a website used to treat people with internet addiction in the USA. All of the participants had completed the Internet Addiction Test and were shown to have an addiction to using the internet. Any addicts who had other psychological problems other than internet addiction were not chosen to participate in the study.
All participants were given a CBT course online. The first sessions which were functional analysis focused on finding out background information of the participant ,when their symptoms started and what kind of symptoms they experienced. the next sessions were skills training and this helped the participant develop skills to treat their symptom.examples included; stopping the use of online apps which were causing the addiction and using different strategies to reduce the amount of time spent online. The therapist also worked with the client to solve other problems which correlated to their addiction such as problems at school, work or at home.
participants filled in a questionnaire during the 3rd, 8th and 12th online therapy session and again 6 months after the treatment sessions had finished. The questionnaire was designed to measure how well the CBT was working to treat the participants symptoms of their addiction. There were 12 questions where participants rated their behaviour or feelings on a likert-type scale which was 5 points. . 1 meant not at all and 5 meant extremely good.
what were the results?
there were 58% of males in the study and the females were 42%. 61% of the participants were educated until university level and there were differences in what apps participants were addicted too. 30% of males were addicted to online pornography and 30% of females were addicted to online chat rooms. 96% of participants said the biggest problem caused by their addiction was the time spent using the online apps.
one aspect which was measured by the questionnaire was the participants attitude towards the CBT sessions including the relationship the participant felt towards the therapist . over the 12 sessions of CBT the average rating of the quality of the CBT sessions improved.
for example the motivation to stop using the online apps went from 4.22 in session 3 and dropped to 3.96 in session 8 and a higher increase to 4.54 in session 12 and when the participants finished therapy their motivation remain high being 4.36.
what was the conclusion?
the results seemed to suggest that the CBT can be an effective treatment for internet addicts because clients reported an increase in the ability to control their problem behaviours. It also gave them long term benefits because after 6 months many clients still remained to have similar ratings of control for their addiction.
how many males and females participated in the study (percentage)?
58% of males and 42% of females.
what were the strengths of the study?
one strength is that it tells us that online sessions of CBT might be useful in treating internet addiction. It is a useful way to access treatment. Some people might be embarrassed to see a therapist face to face or find time to go to therapy, so the online method is accessible and other types of therapy may not be appropriate as a treatment for internet addiction.
another strength is using the same questions and rating scale across all of the measurements of goals means that the data at session 3, 8 and 12 and after 6 months was reliable. each person was assessing their own behaviour in exactly the same way each time so it is consistent and standardised.
what were the weaknesses of the study?
one weakness of the study is that it might not be reliable. this is because patients have to fill out the survey themselves about their own feelings and behaviour. the participants may lie on a questionnaire when they know that they are supposed to be getting better, this means the data might not be valid.
another weakness is that there were different types of internet addiction identified in this study. some participants were addicted to pornography and some were addicted to socialising online. It is not clear whether all types of addiction were treated in this study because the results show the overall treatment outcome for each goal and it does not show what type of addiction had which rating etc.
what problems were associated with the compulsive use of the internet? give the percentages as well?
x time (96%) x relationship (85%) x sexual (75%) x work (71%) x financial (42%) x physical (29%) x academic (15%).
what were the most common problematic online applications reported by the clients?
x pornography, chat (sexual), gambling for men (with a minority reporting gaming)
x chat (sexual) for women (with a minority reporting general chat, online auction
houses, shopping and gaming).
