Cost-effectiveness of online positive psychology: Randomized controlled trial

Abstract

As yet, no evidence is available about the cost-effectiveness of positive psychological interventions. When offered via the Internet, these interventions may be particularly cost-effective, because they are highly scalable and do not rely on scant resources such as therapists’ time. Alongside a randomized controlled trial of an online positive psychological intervention, a health-economic evaluation was conducted. Mild to moderately depressed adults seeking self-help and recruited in the general population were randomly assigned to the intervention group (n = 143) and a waitlisted usual care group (n = 141). Improved clinical outcomes were achieved in the intervention group (at least for depression) at higher costs. When outliers (the top 2.5%, n = 5 in intervention group, n = 2 in control group) were removed, cost-effectiveness was increased considerably. For positive psychology, economic evaluations may be a means to nudge policy decision-makers towards placing positive psychological interventions on the health agenda.

Keywords:

• positive psychology
• well-being
• depression
• cost-effectiveness
• economic evaluation
• randomized controlled trial

Acknowledgements

We are thankful to Joran Lokkerbol for his help with the bootstrap program and for checking the cost calculations. Also, we would like to express our gratitude to all participants without whom our study would not have been possible.

Funding

The study is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport.