Building evidence on digital psychotherapies for adults living with depression: a systematic scoping review of populations, interventions and design features of completed, ongoing and planned trials
The aim of this research is to provide an up-to-date mapping of clinical trials, whether completed, ongoing or planned, of digital psychotherapies for depression, to anticipate tendencies, gaps and potential redundancies in this research field. To this end, we conducted a systematic scoping review covering all trials registered between 2018 and 2025.
Our findings highlight several important disparities. First, only 25.1% of trials recruit participants in low- or middle-income countries, even though the need for care there is immense and professionals qualified to deliver psychotherapy are scarce. Second, although it is a frequent dimension of depression, suicidal ideation is an exclusion criterion in 61.8% of trials. Regarding the approaches evaluated, cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) remains by far the most studied (64.6%), whereas technologies such as conversational agents (chatbots) are assessed in only 4.6% of cases. Finally, from a methodological standpoint, the use of a waitlist control group still applies to 21% of the trials analysed.
To improve the quality and relevance of future trials of digital psychotherapy, we recommend several ways forward. It appears essential to favour the use of active control groups and to diversify the types of psychotherapies evaluated – that is, to avoid the redundant evaluation of cognitive-behavioural approaches alone. Furthermore, future research could prioritise studying the efficacy of these digital interventions in populations with limited access to psychotherapists and scare resources.
- Lien : https://mentalhealth.bmj.com/content/29/1/e302575
- DOI : https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjment-2026-302575
Etienne Duranté, Christopher Veal, Blandine Thibout, Philippe Ravaud, Astrid Chevance
