Online Interventions for Mental Health in Times of COVID: A Systematic Review and Quality Assessment of Scientific Production

Abstract

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on psychological well-being led to a proliferation of online psychological interventions, along with the publications of studies assessing their efficacy. The aim of the present work was to assess the scientific quality of studies addressing online psychological interventions for common mental health problems, comparing studies published during the COVID-19 pandemic to equivalent control articles published four years before the pandemic. To this end, we developed and applied a quality checklist to both samples of articles (N=108). Overall, we found that the methodological quality of many studies on psychological interventions was poor both before and during the pandemic. For instance, 33% of the studies lacked a control group of any kind in both samples of articles, and less than 5% of studies used blinding of any sort. Within this context, we found that studies conducted during the pandemic were published faster, but showed a decrease in key indicators such as the randomized allocation of participants of the experimental groups, pre-registration or data sharing. We conclude that the low overall quality of the available research on online psychological interventions deserves further scrutiny and should be taken into consideration to make informed decisions on therapy choice, policy making, and public health –particularly in times of increased demand and public interest such as the COVID-19 pandemic.