Aims

1. To find out how effective CBT is as a treatment for internet addiction.
2. To see whether clients could manage the thoughts and behaviours behind compulsive internet use and hold on to that change afterwards.

Procedure

1. There were 114 clients at the Center for Online Addiction in Pennsylvania, 42 per cent of them women.
   1. Most were Caucasian at 84%, 61% held bachelor's degrees, and the mean age was 38 for the men and 46 for the women.
2. Clients were screened with the Internet Addiction Test, and high-risk cases were excluded.
3. Clients rated their own progress on a client outcome questionnaire of 12 items, each scored on a 5-point scale.
   1. It was completed at sessions 3, 8 and 12, and once more at a 6-month follow-up.

Results

1. The problems clients reported most often were time (96%) and relationship (85%), then sexual problems at 75% and work problems at 71%.
   1. Below those came financial problems at 42%, physical problems at 29% and academic problems at 15%.
2. Most clients showed continuous improvement by session 3 and effective symptom management by sessions 8 and 12.
3. Those gains were maintained at the 6-month follow-up, and relapse prevention was achieved by clients over that period too.

Conclusions

1. Young concluded that CBT reduced the compulsive-use thoughts and behaviours that had brought clients into treatment.
2. CBT also supported relapse prevention, since the improvement was still there six months after treatment.

Strengths and weaknesses

1. A strength is that these were real clients receiving real treatment in a clinic, which gives the study high ecological validity.
2. A second strength is that the 6-month follow-up shows the change lasted rather than fading once the sessions stopped.
3. A weakness is that there was no control group, so the improvement cannot be attributed to the CBT rather than to time passing.
4. A second weakness is that the outcomes were entirely self-reported, which invites social desirability from clients who want to please their therapist.

Turning this into marks

1. State a precise result, so 96% reported problems with time is safer than most clients had problems.
2. Name the 114 clients, the Internet Addiction Test screening and the measurements at sessions 3, 8 and 12.
3. Weigh the ecological validity against the missing control group rather than simply listing both.