TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of an acceptance facilitating intervention on psychotherapists' acceptance of blended therapy
AU - Baumeister, Harald
AU - Terhorst, Yannik
AU - Grassle, Cora
AU - Freudenstein, Maren
AU - Nubling, Rudiger
AU - Ebert, David Daniel
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Baumeister et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2020/8
Y1 - 2020/8
N2 - Blended therapy is a new approach combining advantages of face-to-face psychotherapy and Internet- and mobile-based interventions. Acceptance is a fundamental precondition for its implementation. The aim of this study was to assess 1) the acceptance of psychotherapists towards blended therapy, 2) the effectiveness of an acceptance facilitating intervention (AFI) on psychotherapists' acceptance towards blended therapy and 3) to identify potential effect moderators. Psychotherapists (N = 284) were randomly assigned to a control (CG) or an intervention group (IG). The IG received a short video showing an example of blended therapy, the CG an attention placebo video. Both groups received a reliable online questionnaire assessing acceptance, effort expectancy, performance expectancy, facilitating conditions, social influence and internet anxiety. Between group differences were examined using t-tests and Mann-Whitney tests. Exploratory analysis was conducted to identify moderators. Psychotherapists in CG showed mixed baseline acceptance towards blended therapy (low = 40%, moderate = 33%, high = 27%). IG showed significantly higher acceptance compared to CG (d = .27, pone-sided = .029; low = 24%, moderate = 47%, high = 30%). Bootstrapped confidence intervals were overlapping. Performance expectancy (d = .35), effort expectancy (d = .44) and facilitating conditions (d = .28) were significantly increased (p < .05). No effects on social influence and internet anxiety were found (p>.05). Exploratory analysis indicated psychodynamic oriented psychotherapists profiting particularly from the AFI. Blended therapy is a promising approach to improve healthcare. Psychotherapists show mixed acceptance, which might be improvable by AFIs, particularly in subpopulations of initially rather skeptical psychotherapists. Forthcoming studies should extend the present study by shifting focus from attitudes to the impact of different forms of AFIs on uptake.
AB - Blended therapy is a new approach combining advantages of face-to-face psychotherapy and Internet- and mobile-based interventions. Acceptance is a fundamental precondition for its implementation. The aim of this study was to assess 1) the acceptance of psychotherapists towards blended therapy, 2) the effectiveness of an acceptance facilitating intervention (AFI) on psychotherapists' acceptance towards blended therapy and 3) to identify potential effect moderators. Psychotherapists (N = 284) were randomly assigned to a control (CG) or an intervention group (IG). The IG received a short video showing an example of blended therapy, the CG an attention placebo video. Both groups received a reliable online questionnaire assessing acceptance, effort expectancy, performance expectancy, facilitating conditions, social influence and internet anxiety. Between group differences were examined using t-tests and Mann-Whitney tests. Exploratory analysis was conducted to identify moderators. Psychotherapists in CG showed mixed baseline acceptance towards blended therapy (low = 40%, moderate = 33%, high = 27%). IG showed significantly higher acceptance compared to CG (d = .27, pone-sided = .029; low = 24%, moderate = 47%, high = 30%). Bootstrapped confidence intervals were overlapping. Performance expectancy (d = .35), effort expectancy (d = .44) and facilitating conditions (d = .28) were significantly increased (p < .05). No effects on social influence and internet anxiety were found (p>.05). Exploratory analysis indicated psychodynamic oriented psychotherapists profiting particularly from the AFI. Blended therapy is a promising approach to improve healthcare. Psychotherapists show mixed acceptance, which might be improvable by AFIs, particularly in subpopulations of initially rather skeptical psychotherapists. Forthcoming studies should extend the present study by shifting focus from attitudes to the impact of different forms of AFIs on uptake.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089407881&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0236995
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0236995
M3 - Article
C2 - 32785245
AN - SCOPUS:85089407881
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 15
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 8 August
M1 - e0236995
ER -