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The Overall Anxiety Severity and Impairment Scale (OASIS) is a self-report questionnaire designed to evaluate the severity and functional impairment associated with anxiety. Given its transdiagnostic nature, it can be used indistinctly across anxiety and depressive disorders. In this study, the psychometric properties of the online version of the OASIS were evaluated in a Spanish clinical sample with emotional disorders. Patients (n = 583) with anxiety (n = 250) and depression (n = 333) with a mean age of 37.21 (SD = 12.22), underwent a diagnostic interview and questionnaires assessing anxiety, depression, positive and negative affect, and quality of life. Factorial structure, internal consistency, convergent and discriminant validity, cutoff scores, and sensitivity to change were analyzed. Confirmatory Factor Analysis yielded a unidimensional factor structure, consistent with previous validations of the instrument. The analyses showed good internal consistency and adequate convergent and discriminant validity, as well as sensitivity to change. A cutoff score of 7.5 was found to meet the criteria used in this study to select the optimal cutoff point. Overall, in this study, the psychometric properties of the online version of the OASIS were found to be appropriate. The brevity and ease of use of the OASIS support its adequacy as a valid measure of anxiety severity and impairment in Spanish clinical samples with anxiety and depression., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Background: Flying phobia (FP) is a common and disabling mental disorder. Although in vivo exposure is the treatment of choice, it is linked to a number of limitations in its implementation. Particularly important, is the limited access to the feared stimulus (i.e., plane). Moreover, the economic cost of in vivo exposure should be specially considered as well as the difficulty of applying the exposure technique in an appropriate way; controlling important variables such as the duration of the exposure or the number of sessions. ICTs could help to reduce these limitations. Computer-assisted treatments have remarkable advantages in treating FP. Furthermore, they can be delivered through the Internet, increasing their advantages and reaching more people in need. The Internet has been established as an effective way to treat a wide range of mental disorders. However, as far as we know, no controlled studies exist on FP treatment via the Internet. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of an Internet-based treatment for FP (NO-FEAR Airlines) versus a waiting list control group. Secondary objectives will be to explore two ways of delivering NO-FEAR Airlines, with or without therapist guidance, and study the patients' acceptance of the program. This paper presents the study protocol., Methods/design: The study is a randomized controlled trial. A minimum of 57 participants will be randomly assigned to three conditions: a) NO-FEAR Airlines totally self-applied, b) NO-FEAR Airlines with therapist guidance, or c) a waiting list control group (6 weeks). Primary outcomes measures will be the Fear of Flying Questionnaire-II and the Fear of Flying Scale. Secondary outcomes will be included to assess other relevant clinical measures, such as the Fear and Avoidance Scales, Clinician Severity Scale, and Patient's Improvement scale. Analyses of post-treatment flights will be conducted. Treatment acceptance and preference measures will also be included. Intention-to-treat and per protocol analyses will be conducted., Discussion: An Internet-based treatment for FP could have considerable advantages in managing in vivo exposure limitations, specifically in terms of access to treatment, acceptance, adherence, and the cost-effectiveness of the intervention. This is the first randomized controlled trial to study this issue., Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT02298478 . Trial registration date 3 November 2014.

In vivo exposure is the treatment of choice for specific phobias. However, this treatment is linked to a number of limitations in its implementation. Therefore, it is important to develop strategies for improving treatment adherence, acceptance, and dissemination of evidence-based treatments. Information and Communication Technologies, specifically, computerized programs boast advantages in treating flying phobia. NO-FEAR Airlines is a Computer-aided Self-help Treatment for this problem, which can be self-applied via Internet. NO-FEAR Airlines treatment protocol comprises three therapeutic components: psychoeducation, exposure and overlearning. Exposure is carried out through 6 scenarios that are composed by images and real sounds related to a flight in process. The aim of the present work is to describe NO-FEAR Airlines program.

Emotional disorders (Anxiety disorders and Mood disorders) are one of the most common health problems worldwide, and their economic costs are very high. People suffering from emotional disorders often use maladaptive emotion regulation strategies and have low coping behaviour that contributes to the presence of clinical symptoms. For this reason, it is important to develop strategies to monitor coping and promote emotion regulation in people exposed to high levels of stress. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can help us in this task. Recent systematic reviews of literature on evidence-based CBT treatments delivered via the Internet show that these approaches are effective. We have developed an intervention program ICT based: Coping with Stress and Emotion Regulation Program (Smiling is Fun), a self-applied program via the Internet. Smiling is Fun follows a transdiagnostic perspective, and it is based on CBT techniques. However, it also includes other psychological strategies to improve positive mood. The aim of the present work is to describe Smiling is Fun and the study designed to test its efficacy.

This study offers data about the efficacy of "Talk to Me," an Internet-based telepsychology program for the treatment of fear of public speaking that includes the most active components in cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) for social phobia (exposure and cognitive therapies). One hundred twenty-seven participants with social phobia were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions: (a) an Internet-based self-administered program; (b) the same program applied by a therapist; (c) a waiting-list control group. Results showed that both treatment conditions were equally efficacious. In addition, Talk to Me and the same treatment applied by a therapist were more efficacious than the waiting-list condition. Treatment gains were maintained at 1-year follow-up. The results from this study support the utility of Internet-delivered CBT programs in order to reach a higher number of people who could benefit from CBT. Internet-delivered CBT programs could also play a valuable role in the dissemination of CBT.

The Butler Project is a technological e-health platform that uses the Internet to connect various users; it was designed to deliver health care to the elderly. The Butler platform has three levels of implementation: diagnosis (mood monitoring, alert system, management reports), therapy (training in inducing positive moods, memory work), and entertainment (e-mail, chat, video, photo albums, music, friend forums, accessibility to the Internet). The objective of this work is to describe the psychological aspects of the platform and to present data obtained from four users. Results show that after using the system, the participants increased their positive emotions and decreased their negative ones; in addition, they obtained high levels of satisfaction and experienced little difficulty in using the system.

One of the challenges today in the research of psychological treatments based on evidence is their dissemination. Efficacious and effective psychological treatments should be available and accessible for both practitioners and consumers. However, only a small percentage of potential patients actively seek help for psychological problems that could be ameliorated by therapy. Internet-based self-help interventions may help to solve this problem by reducing the amount of actual contact between therapist and patient and by overcoming the geographical barriers that separate them. The aim of this work is to present a completely self-applied telepsychology program (Without Fear) to treat small animal phobia (spiders, cockroaches, and mice), which uses virtual reality scenarios for the exposure tasks. Preliminary data about the efficacy and effectiveness of this program in a series of 12 cases is offered. Participants showed an improvement in all clinical measures at posttreatment, and the therapeutic gains were maintained at a 3-month followup.