Internet-delivered psychological treatment in primary care: six studies of optimized treatment for health anxiety and transdiagnostic treatment for anxiety and depression

Though it has been estimated that 30-50% of patients seeking help in primary care suffer from a mental health disorder and national guidelines emphasize the role of psychosocial treatment, only approximately every other primary care clinic in Sweden reports being able meet their patients’ need for mental health care.

This application describes 3 lines of research: For the first line of research, data from clinical trials of treatment for health anxiety in primary care will be used to investigate (study 1:) if the division between somatic symptom disorder and illness anxiety disorder as introduced in the DSM-5 is clinically warranted, (study 2:) the frequency and role of adverse events in cognitive behavior therapy, and (study 3:) which baseline variables that are most likely to be predictive of the treatment outcome in exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy for health anxiety.

For the second line of research, (study 4:) a study to determine useful clinical cut-offs on the 14-item Short health anxiety inventory.

For the third line of research, the author will make contributions to the development of transdiagnostic online treatments suitable for primary care by first (study 5:) analyzing and supervising the publication of data from a feasibility trial at Liljeholmen primary care clinic and then (study 6:) analyzing and supervising the publication of a systematic review and meta-analysis of transdiagnostic online treatments suitable for primary care.