Turner, Alison (2020) Who Engages in Internet-Delivered Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Child Anxiety? Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Open-access, self-directed cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) programs have been identified as a cost-effective evidence-based treatment alternative to clinic-based therapy for child anxiety. However, dropout before completion hinders their overall impact. Previous research measuring engagement simply as usage or sessions completed has provided little insight into which young people actually engage in these programs. This study investigated two aims. The first aim explored how children engaged (overall and in early sessions) in an online CBT program for anxiety, when engagement was operationalised in three ways: sessions completed (amount of usage), activities completed (depth of usage) and words written (user experience). The second aim examined whether children of different demographic (genders, ages) and clinical profiles (referral types, levels of anxiety severity) showed different patterns of engagement. Participants were 13,300 Australian children who registered for the child version (7–12 years) of the BRAVE Self-Help program between 2014 and 2020. Participants were monitored for a period of 20 weeks. Results revealed the three measures of engagement provided useful descriptive information: session completion averaged 3.59 (SD = 2.79) for those who started the program; activity completion changed throughout the program, peaking in sessions 1 and 2; while words written per activity was relatively similar across the program. Results also revealed different patterns of engagement for children of different profiles as well as the same profile, depending on the way in which engagement was operationalised. Meaningful differences were evident between genders and ages only when engagement was operationalised as words written, and between referral types for all three measures but in different directions. The findings can guide future research by demonstrating the usefulness of measuring engagement in multiple ways and informs clinicians referring to self-help programs about how different children engage in such programs.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
|---|---|
| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Counselling (1 Jan 2015 - 31 Dec 2021) |
| Supervisors: | Sonja March |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Sep 2025 05:27 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Sep 2025 05:27 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | engagement; open-access; internet-delivered CBT; self-help; child anxiety |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52833 |
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