People who ruminated and worried excessively were helped by an online course, a randomised controlled trial found.
An online course designed to curb negative thinking has had strong results in helping people reduce the time they spend ruminating and worrying, a new study from UNSW Sydney has shown.
And researchers say the online course, which will soon be hosted on the government funded online clinic This Way Up and is free with a prescription from a clinician, was found to significantly improve the mental health of the people who participated in the study. The trial was part of a collaboration between UNSW, the Black Dog Institute and The Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety and Depression at St Vincent’s Health Network.
The Managing Rumination and Worry Program features three lessons to be completed over a six-week period. It aims to help participants reduce their levels of rumination, which is dwelling on past negative experiences, and worry, which is thinking over and over about bad things happening in future.
Professor Jill Newby, who is a clinical psychologist with UNSW’s School of Psychology and the affiliated Black Dog Institute, says when the call went out to recruit people for the randomised controlled trial, the team was inundated with applications.
“Out of all the research we’ve done on online therapies, this is by far the most popular program we’ve done,” Prof. Newby says.
“We got way more applicants for what we could manage in a very quick timeframe. So it’s clear there is a community need for help with rumination and worry.”
The researchers recruited 137 adults who were experiencing elevated levels of repetitive negative thinking. They were randomly allocated to one of three groups: a clinician-guided, three-lesson online course delivered over six weeks; the same course but without the assistance of a clinician; or a control group who received the online course after an 18-week waiting period.
The researchers found that 80 per cent of the participants who did the online course with or without the assistance of a clinician reported significantly lower levels of repetitive negative thoughts, depression and distress immediately following the course, and at the three-month follow-up. To quantify their progress, the participants were asked to self-report against a number of recognised questionnaires and scales measuring repetitive thinking, anxiety and depression before and after taking the online course.
Those in the group that had the assistance of the clinician showed the best results. Prof. Newby says clinicians spent an average total of 48 minutes across the six-week period helping participants, suggesting such a program can be delivered relatively easily and at scale.
The results in the two groups who did the online course also compared favourably with the control group which did not show the same rates of improvement.
“We’ve known for years now that online programs can help improve mental health. But this is one of the first that specifically focuses on rumination and worry. There were a couple of previous studies that were done in the UK to prevent mental illness in young people, but this is the first that focused on all-aged adults and that was used as an intervention program,” Prof. Newby says.
Lessons and action plans
The content of the online course was presented in an illustrated comic-style story that follows two fictional characters who learn to better manage rumination and worry. Following each lesson, participants
