In Autumn 2015, we launched a survey to explore the perceived potential for – and barriers to – the adoption of online therapies amongst IAPT professionals across the country. We repeated the survey in 2016 to find out how things have changed.
The results are out! Check out the key findings in the infographics below.
Between 2015 and 2016, the number of respondents who said that their service currently offers online therapy increased, from 43 to 54%
More than half of respondents described their experience with online therapy as good or excellent in 2016, a figure which has grown significantly from around one third the previous year.
Though we had fewer survey respondents this year, the ratio of therapists to administrators/service leads/managers remained around the same.
Between 2015 and 2016 there was an increase – from 77 to 79% – in the number of respondents who thought patients would benefit from the option of treatment via the internet.
In both years, a slightly higher percentage of service leads and managers thought that patients would benefit from the option of treatment via the internet than therapists.
We asked what respondents thought they thought the main concerns were for IAPT services when considering adopting online therapies. In 2015 reduced quality of care was considered to be the leading concern. In 2016, the response to this question was fairly evenly distributed across options, with ‘reduced quality of care’ and ‘lack of therapist engagement’ brought into balance, and ‘lack of patient engagement’ emerging as the biggest perceived barrier.
