Pavle Zagorscak

• Dr.
• Research Assistant at Freie Universität Berlin

Internet-based interventions (IBIs) are effective for treating depression, but they can also lead to negative effects in some participants. There is no consensus on which specific characteristics of negative effects clinicians and researchers should focus on. Studies often combine distinct (sub)categories of negative effects, complicating interpret...

Introduction Despite CBT’s status as a first-line treatment, a substantial proportion of patients does not experience sufficient symptom relief. Recent advances in wearable technology and smartphone integration enable new, ecologically valid approaches to capture dynamic processes in real time. By combining ecological momentary assessment (EMA) wit...

Background Internet-Based Interventions (IBIs) are effective treatments for mental disorders, but their implementation faces challenges, particularly in addressing high dropout rates. Adding more human support or guidance might reduce treatment dropout rates in IBIs, but it may also limit scalability. Therefore, small, easy-to-implement, guidance-b...

Background: Internet-based interventions (IBIs) offer the potential for personalization through various mechanisms and components. Objective: This systematic review aimed to synthesize evidence on the personalization of treatment components within IBIs targeting diverse mental health conditions. Specifically, we focused on studies that directly com...

Background Internet-based interventions (IBIs) are a low-threshold treatment for individuals with depression. However, comparisons of IBI against unstandardized care-as-usual (CAU) are scarce. Moreover, little evidence is available if IBI has an add-on effect for individuals already receiving an evidence-based treatment such as antidepressants and/...

Randomized controlled trials are the gold standard for evaluating internet-based interventions (IBIs). However, their value depends on whether the estimated treatment effect accurately reflects its intended meaning. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Decisions addressing so-called intercurrent events, such as treatment discontinuation, can...

Background. Internet-Based Interventions (IBIs) are effective treatments for mental disorders, but their implementation faces challenges, particularly in addressing high dropout rates. Adding more human support or guidance might reduce treatment dropout rates in IBIs, but it may also limit scalability. Therefore, small, easy-to-implement, guidance-...

Objective: Depressive symptom dynamics, including change trajectories and symptom variability, have been related to therapy outcomes. However, such dynamics have often been examined separately and related to outcomes of interest using two-step analyses, which are characterized by several limitations. Here, we show how to overcome these limitations...

Background Internet-based interventions produce comparable effectiveness rates as face-to-face therapy in treating depression. Still, more than half of patients do not respond to treatment. Machine learning (ML) methods could help to overcome these low response rates by predicting therapy outcomes on an individual level and tailoring treatment acco...

Symmetrical bifactor models are frequently applied to diverse symptoms of psychopathology to identify a general P factor. This factor is assumed to mark shared liability across all psychopathology dimensions and mental disorders. Despite their popularity, however, symmetrical bifactor models of P often yield anomalous results, including but not lim...

Objective: Applying elements of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in internet-based interventions (IBIs) is effective in treating depression. However, CBT-based IBIs differ in which kind of components are applied and the order of their application. Furthermore, it is as yet unknown whether such sequencing matters. Using an IBI for depression, we...

Background In blended therapy, face-to-face psychotherapy and Internet-based interventions are combined. Blended therapy may be advantageous for patients and psychotherapists. However, most blended interventions focus on cognitive behavioral therapy or single disorders, making them less suitable for routine care settings. Methods In a randomized c...

A large body of research has examined the link between personality and face-to-face (FtF) communication knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs). With the rise of digital media, text-based computer-mediated (CM) communication KSAOs have gained increasing attention. We conducted two studies to investigate how personality relat...

Background: In blended therapy, face-to-face psychotherapy and Internet-based interventionsare combined. Blended therapy may be advantageous for patients and psychotherapists.However, most blended interventions focus on cognitive behavioral therapy or single disorders,making them less suitable for routine care settings.Methods: In a randomized cont...

An increasing number of studies is proving the efficacy of Internet-based interventions (IBI) for treating depression. While the focus of most studies is thereby lying on the potential of IBI to alleviate emotional distress and enhance well-being, few studies are investigating possible negative effects that might be encountered by participants. The...

Background Eating disorders are prevalent, often have chronic courses and relapses are frequent even after effective treatment approaches. Therefore, prevention is decisive; however, many of the current prevention programs are resource intensive. Internet-based interventions can represent cost-effective and low threshold alternatives but only few a...

Background Internet cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT) is a viable delivery format of CBT for depression. However, iCBT programmes include training in a wide array of cognitive and behavioural skills via different delivery methods, and it remains unclear which of these components are more efficacious and for whom. Methods We did a systematic revi...

Importance Personalized treatment choices would increase the effectiveness of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT) for depression to the extent that patients differ in interventions that better suit them. Objective To provide personalized estimates of short-term and long-term relative efficacy of guided and unguided iCBT for depressi...

The Beck Depression Inventory–II is one of the most frequently used scales to assess depressive burden. Despite many psychometric evaluations, its factor structure is still a topic of debate. An increasing number of articles using fully symmetrical bifactor models have been published recently. However, they all produce anomalous results, which lead...

Symmetrical bifactor models are frequently applied to diverse symptoms of psychopathology to identify a general P factor. This factor is assumed to mark shared liability across psychopathology dimensions and mental disorders. Despite their popularity, however, symmetrical bifactor models often yield anomalous results, including but not limited to n...

Research suggests 4 categories of outcome predictors in face-to-face therapy (i.e., treatment expectations, extratherapeutic factors, relationship factors, and factors specific to a treatment approach/technique). However, it is unclear whether these factors are relevant in standardized and individualized Internet-based interventions. To investigate...

Bystanders play a crucial role in aggressive behavior in group contexts. Cyberbystanders can react in proactive ways such as assisting a cyberbully or defending the victim. Since school relationships spill over to the online world, the school context is likely to influence students’ online behavior. In the present study, we examine the influence of...

Background: Standardized and individualized Internet-based interventions (IBI) for depression yield significant symptom improvements. However, change patterns during standardized or individualized IBI are unknown. Identifying subgroups that experience different symptom courses during IBI and their characteristics is vital for improving response....

Background: Participants for efficacy studies on Internet-based interventions (IBI) are recruited through self-selected convenience sampling or targeted external invitations. Comparisons are necessary to determine how recruitment strategies influence sample composition. Such comparisons consequently yield potential for evaluating which conditions a...

Hintergrund: In Wirksamkeitsstudien zu internetbasierten Interventionen (IBI) werden Teilnehmende entweder durch Selbstselektion oder gezielte Ansprache rekrutiert. Vergleiche zwischen unterschiedlichen Rekrutierungsstrategien ermöglichen zu ermitteln, wie der Zugang zur Intervention die Stichprobenzusammensetzung beeinflusst. Gleichzeitig kann übe...

Zusammenfassung Die vorliegende Überblicksarbeit erklärt das Phänomen Cybermobbing im Kindes- und Jugendalter und geht auf mögliche Folgen für die Betroffenen sowie auf Entstehungsbedingungen ein. Im Beitrag werden Möglichkeiten der systematischen Prävention im Kontext Schule mithilfe des wirksamkeitsevaluierten Programms Medienhelden aufgezeigt. I...

Digitale Kommunikationsmedien spielen im Alltag von Kindern und Jugendlichen eine immer bedeutendere Rolle und finden somit auch vermehrt Verwendung in psychotherapeutischen Interventionen. Unter Berücksichtigung spezieller Herausforderungen wie Beziehungsgestaltung, visuelle Anonymität oder Datensicherheit werden exemplarisch mehrere bewährte onli...

The theory of reasoned action (ToRA) has been proposed as a framework for cyberbullying prevention design, targeting attitudes and norms. In this study effects of a long (10 weekly sessions) and a short (one day, four sessions) cyberbullying prevention program based on the ToRA were compared with a control group over 9 months. Longitudinal data fro...

Background: Even though there is an increasing number of studies on the efficacy of Internet-based interventions (IBI) for depression, experimental trials on the benefits of added guidance by clinicians are scarce and inconsistent. This study compared the efficacy of semistandardized feedback provided by psychologists with fully standardized feedb...

"Media Heroes" (German: "Medienhelden") is a structured, manual-based cyberbullying prevention program implemented by trained teachers within the existing school curriculum. It targets middle-school students (7th to 10th grade), their teachers, and parents. "Media Heroes" aims to promote media literacy and to prevent cyberbullying. It was one of th...

The theory-based, modularized and standardized preventive intervention “Medienhelden” (Engl. = “MediaHeroes”) (Schultze-Krumbholz, Zagorscak, Siebenbrock, & Scheithauer, 2012) is implemented in one of two different versions within the school context (7th-9th graders): either as a ten-week program during lessons (curriculum) or as a single project d...

As the world's population increasingly relies on the use of modern technology, cyberbullying becomes an omnipresent risk for children and adolescents and demands counteraction to prevent negative (online) experiences. The classroom-based German preventive intervention "Medienhelden" (engl.: "Media Heroes") builds on previous knowledge about links b...

The manualized Medienhelden (engl. Media Heroes) program (Schultze-Krumbholz, Zagorscak, Siebenbrock, Scheithauer, 2012) is implemented in the school environment either as a ten-week program during lessons (curriculum; IGL) or as a single project day with reduced content of the long version (IGK). In consecutive lessons, topics of the program are,...

‘Medienhelden’ (engl. Media Heroes) is one of the first evaluated preventive intervention approaches targeting cyberbullying. It is available as a long version (IGL) over ten weeks and as a short version (IGK) over one day. The effects were compared to a control group (KG) with no intervention. Longitudinal data (before and approximately six months...

Although cyberbullying is characterized by worrying prevalence rates and associated with a broad range of detrimental consequences, there is a lack of scientifically based and evaluated preventive strategies. Therefore, the present study introduces a theory-based cyberbullying prevention program (Media Heroes; German original: Medienhelden) and eva...

“Medienhelden” (engl. = Media Heroes) is a structured, manual-based cyberbullying prevention program implemented by trained and supervised teachers within the existing school curriculum. It targets middle school students (7th to 10th grade), their teachers and parents. Medienhelden aims to promote media competencies and prevent cyberbullying by usi...

Previous research has shown detrimental effects of cyberbullying on adolescents‘ well-being and mental health. However, hardly any evaluated prevention strategies exist. The program Medienhelden (“Media Heroes”) was developed based on current theoretical and empirical knowledge about the association between social competencies, internet literacy, a...