Objective
This article aims to describe emerging web‐based behavioural activation to illustrate technology features currently available or under development and investigation. We describe how recent challenges to psychotherapy could be successfully addressed using web‐based approaches. These challenges involve the need for greater reach, the need to evaluate mediation for interventions, and the need to address whether web‐based interventions maintain treatment integrity (TI) as demonstrated in face‐to‐face delivery.
Method
We selected five emerging web‐based interventions that have shown initial efficacy based on a PsychInfo search in July 2015. The models chosen are illustrative of the range of technology features that are consistent with behavioural activation implementation and afford the capability of achieving greater reach and advancing both mediation and TI analyses.
Results
Our investigation revealed three basic points. First, technology can assist dissemination such that greater reach is achieved. Second, this can be done while validating TI. Finally, we propose how mediation and TI analyses can become more widespread and population‐specific through the adoption of a technology‐based approach.
Conclusions
The adoption of behavioural intervention technology presents opportunities that include (1) achieving client reach unconstrained by geo‐specific location of the home base of clinician‐researchers; (2) providing a clearer demonstration of therapy mediation in the simplest terms; and (3) identifying if essential features were delivered as a way of preserving integrity.