Implementing and up-scaling evidence-based eMental health in Europe: The study protocol for the MasterMind project

Abstract

Background: Depressive disorder is a major societal challenge. Despite the availability of clinically and costeffective\ntreatments including Internet interventions, the number of patients receiving treatment is limited.\nEvidence-based Internet interventions promise wide availability and high efficiency of treatments. However,\nthese interventions often do not enter routine mental healthcare delivery at a large scale. The MasterMind project\naims to provide insight into the factors that promote or hinder the uptake and implementation of evidence-based\nInternet interventions by mental healthcare practice. Internet-based Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (iCBT) and\nvideoconferencing facilitating collaborative care (ccVC) will be implemented in routine mental healthcare. The\nservices will be offered to 5230 depressed adults in 15 European regions. The current paper describes the\nevaluation protocol for this large-scale implementation project.\nDesign: Current summative evaluation study follows a naturalistic one-group pretest–posttest design and\nassesses three distinct stakeholders: patients, mental healthcare professionals, and mental healthcare organisations.\nThe Model for Assessment of Telemedicine applications (MAST) will be employed to structure the implementation\nand evaluation study. The primary focal points of interest are reach, clinical effect, acceptability,appropriateness, implementation costs, and sustainability of the interventions in practice. Mixed-methods are\nused to provide an understanding of what (quantitative) the implementation projects have achieved and their\nmeaning to various stakeholders (qualitative).\nDiscussion: The use of Internet interventions in routine practice is limited. MasterMind attempts to bridge the gap\nbetween routine practice and effectiveness research by evaluating the implementation of evidence-based Internet\ninterventions for depressive disorders in routine mental healthcare settings in Europe.