Symptom-free in 21 days with 15 minutes per day with online self-help therapy? A 5-year longitudinal follow-up study on over 2.500 patients and in depth analysis of over 6.000 patients.

Objective

15Minutes4Me.com is an auto therapeutic daily Self-Help Program designed to help patients reduce Stress, Anxiety, Depression and other stress-related Psychosomatic Symptoms.

In our survey two thirds of our own registered e-health patients report to never have consulted a medical professional, despite our continuous efforts to motivate them and delivering them a weekly progression report with progression graphs for their psychiatrist or physician. Nor during nor after their online self-help psychotherapy! So this suggests that this form of auto therapy can help patients whom otherwise would never been helped, because modern patients also search for solutions on Dr. Google before or even without ever seeing a Psychiatrist, Physician, Psychologist, medical professional or Therapist.

In this descriptive longitudinal follow-up study we want to analyze and describe the evolution of patients DURING and AFTER participation in the Self-Help Program @ www.15Minutes4me.com, in order to get insight in their clinical evolution.

Methods

1° DURING participation @ ’15Minutes4Me.com’

During participation in the daily Self-Help Program ’15Minutes4Me.com’ we measure every 7 participation days the total DASS-21 Scores (Stress + Anxiety + Depression) and the subjective increase in life satisfaction with a 0-10 Scale. We analyze the dataset of all existing participants who attended the program for minimal 8 days.

Because the patient is free to decide how long he participates we calculate ‘exit’ scores in comparison to their ‘start’ scores in order to see how they are doing at their own moment of choice of discontinuing the program. Every 30 days the patient has to take a proactive decision to prolong the program or not. As a consequence it takes a clear decision to from the patient to renew the payment and re-subscribe for an additional 30 days. There exists NO automatic renewal.

In order to get clearer insight in the question when and why the patient discontinues, we calculated some years ago on 545 patients who attended the program during 21 days how many improved or not when exiting the program.

2° AFTER participation @ ’15Minutes4Me.com’

We invited all participants who terminated the program for more than 3 months to participate in a follow-up measurement of their scores. We got a response from 2.506, being 45% of the invited participants.

Results

1° DURING participation @ ’15Minutes4Me.com’

During participation we observe that

1. The typical patient (‘mean’ or 50th percentile) reaches ‘normal’ healthy (scores on the total DASS-21 Scale in 21 participation days, being 30 on a 126 point scale, with a 56% stress decline compared to the ‘start’ day.
2. The mean ‘exit’ score reaches the ‘normal’ healthy value of 30 on the total DASS-21 Scale, suggesting a tendency to continue until the patient feels good enough to be able to solve his (other) problems.
3. At the moment of exiting the program, 42% got ‘normal’ healthy scores on every single sub scale of the DASS-21, 63% got ‘normal’ healthy scores on the total DASS-21 scale, while 97% had an improvement with a better exit score than when they started. 3% exited without an improvement in their exit score compared to their start.
4. Subjective Life Satisfaction increases with 40% in 21 days and remains stable over time during and after the program.

2° AFTER participation @ ’15Minutes4Me.com’

In our Follow-up survey we got response from 45% of the participants, being 2.504 on 5.604 invited. We describe their scores:

1. The ‘mean’ survey responder reaches ‘normal’ healthy scores when terminating the program and keeps similar values after terminating the program when measured over until 6 years. Values remain below 30 on the total DASS-21.
2. On the question if the ‘problem’ that made them take the decision to participate is now solved, 89% indicated either a solution, and improvement or more acceptance of their limitations … including external irresolvable problems like a chronic disease (cancer, autism, chronic endogenous biological depression), financial debts, divorce, loss of a partner or child, , …
3. Only 36% has seen a professional during or after participation despite our weekly reminder with a report for their physician. 41% of those claims that attending the program has helped them to take the decision to seek for additional professional help.

Follow up study 15Minutes4Me.Com @ World Congress of Psychiatry Berlin 2017

For more nuanced details attend our workshop @ the World Psychiatry Congress in Berlin:

Dear colleagues, you are all invited at my lecture about our research @ the 17th World Psychiatry Congress in Berlin 2017.
We will present our research with 5 year Follow-Up study @ the 17th World Psychiatry Congress in Berlin 2017.
Join us Tuesday, 10 October 2017, 13:30 – 15:00 h, Room M4/M5.
We analyzed 2.500 patients over 5 years after following our program, while presenting results of more than 6.000 participants during their attendance of the 15Minutes4Me.com Program.

Tuesday, 10 October 2017, 13:30 – 15:00 h,  Room M4/M5 S Symposium (english): E-mental health is invading your world: How to discern quality from charlatanism

Chair: Prof. Dr. Stijn Jannes, MD

Co-Chair: Dr. J.P. Klein

Lecture in Symposium (english)

Symptom-free in 21 days with 15 minutes per day with online self-help therapy? A 5-year longitudinal follow-up study on over 2.500 patients @  http://www.wpaberlin2017.com/

Author: Dr. Paul Koeck, MD

Dr. Paul Koeck speaking @ World Congress of Psychiatry, Berlin 2017

Read also @ the specialised medical press in dutch language:

• https://www.medi-sfeer.be/nl/nieuws/beroepsnieuws/gunstige-resultaten-van-lsquo-mijn-kwartier-rsquo-gepresenteerd-op-internationaal-congres.html
• https://www.despecialist.eu/nl/nieuws/beroepsnieuws/online-zelfhulp-werkt-symptoomvrij-na-drie-weken.html
• Poster-DrPaulKoeck-WorldCongressMentalTraining-Gavle-2019-v4

This abstract is a copy of the abstract at the conference app downloadable @ the World Congress website: http://www.wpaberlin2017.com/