University of Twente Student Theses

"VoluitLeven" ter bevordering van de geestelijke gezondheid - Een gerandomiseerde, gecontroleerde studie naar de effecten van een online interventie gebaseerd op Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Köhle, Nadine (2011) "VoluitLeven" ter bevordering van de geestelijke gezondheid - Een gerandomiseerde, gecontroleerde studie naar de effecten van een online interventie gebaseerd op Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

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Abstract:	Background: In the Netherlands, mental disorders like major depressions and anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and it is expected that the number of mental disorders will increase over the next years. This causes a high amount of burden of disease and high costs in the health care. Besides the treatment of mental illness, the interest in the prevention of mental disorders and the improvement of mental health increased over the last years. Within this context the online course ―VoluitLeven‖ is developed which is based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). This theory primarily aims to promote mental health. The objectives of this study were: (1) to get an overview of the effects of the online course on mental health, psychological flexibility and mindfulness, (2) to study if psychological flexibility and mindfulness mediated mental health and (3) to investigate which participants stopped with the study and/or the intervention and which reasons they gave for their decision. Methods: 236 people with mild to medium mental symptoms but without psychopathology were assigned into the conditions (1) intervention (n=82), the online course ―VoluitLeven‖; (2) control (n=67), the course ―Expressive writing‖ en (3) a waiting-list (n=87). The participants completed measures before the intervention as well as after the intervention to assess mental health (MHC-SF), psychological flexibility (AAQ-II) and mindfulness (FFMQ-SF). Results: In comparison with the control- and waiting-list groups, the intervention group showed higher levels of mental health, psychological flexibility and mindfulness after participating in the online course. Medium effect sizes were found in this study. Mediational analyses showed that psychological flexibility and mindfulness mediate the improvement of mental health. Conclusion: This study has shown that the online course ―VoluitLeven‖ seems to be an appropriate candidate for the prevention of mental disorders and for the improvement of mental health in the group of high educated, middle-aged Dutch women. This study has demonstrated that the online course improved mental health, psychological flexibility and mindfulness of people with mild to medium mental symptoms. Future research is necessary to verify that the course is also effective for men, adolescents, older people, low educated people and foreigners in the Dutch population.
Item Type:	Essay (Master)
Faculty:	BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:	77 psychology
Programme:	Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:	https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/61216
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