In 2010, 30 million Europeans were affected by depression and their number is still growing. Half of Europeans in need of mental care for depression do not have access to care services, do not always receive evidence-based treatments, are confronted with long waiting lists or high care expenditures. Internet-based treatment has the potential to address the drawbacks of standard care and keep depression treatment of high quality and affordable.

E-COMPARED will conduct comparative effectiveness research in routine specialised mental care settings on the (cost-) effectiveness of internet-based treatment for depression in comparison with standard care. Health care systems and policies and existing ICT infrastructures and their uptake will be taken into account.

1) Evaluate EU mental health policies/guidelines for standard and internet-based care for depression in specialised care settings in countries with different health care systems and access levels of standard and internet-based care,

2) Compare clinical efficacy and cost-effectiveness of internet-based treatment and treatment as usual within controlled research settings,

3) Carry out pragmatic randomised controlled trials to study how internet-based depression treatment can be effectively implemented within routine specialised care settings,

4) Predict which patient groups could benefit from internet-based treatment vs. standard treatment by modeling patient characteristics;

5 )Develop evidence based recommendations on how internet-based depression treatment can be cost-effectively integrated into routine specialised care systems for depression in EU mental health care systems, and develop a business case to ensure structural implementation of these services.

E-COMPARED is multidisciplinary (psychology, HTA, ICT, care) and its members are leaders in internet-based treatment for common mental health disorders, e.g. through participating in FP7 projects (ICT4Depression, ROAMER)…