The Efficacy and Effectiveness of Online CBT - Jeroen Ruwaard

24 Chapter 2. Online CBT of Work-Related StressTable 2.1: Characteristics of participants.Control Treatment CombinedCharacteristic a n = 62 n = 177 N = 239DemographicGender : female 68% 42 57% 101 60% 143Age (M SD) 42 9 44 8 44 8Education : tertiary 83% 50 85% 144 84% 194Marital status : married 27% 17 18% 32 21% 49living together 42% 26 54% 96 51% 122unmarried 21% 13 21% 38 21% 51divorced/widow(er) 10% 6 6% 11 7% 17WorkEmployment : fulltime 77% 48 81% 140 80% 188Years in current profession (M SD) 9 9 11 9 10 9Working hours per week (M SD) 35 13 36 13 36 13SymptomsDuration of symptoms (months) (M SD) 26 29 32 36 30 34Sickleave : no 56% 35 65% 114 63% 150partial 23% 14 12% 21 15% 35full 21% 13 23% 41 23% 54a Values represent subsample percentage and size unless otherwise noted.Table 2.1 provides an overview of the characteristics of the two groups. To check therandomization, χ 2 tests or t tests (where appropriate) were conducted with respect tothe outcome measures, gender, age, marital status, education, work contract, workyears, working hours, duration of symptoms, and sick leave status. As expected, nosignificant difference was found [t(238) = .26 - 1.75, P = .08 - .80; χ 2 = .002 - 4.1, P= .13 - .96].Dropout. Fifty participants (21%) dropped out from the study, 49 from the treatmentgroup and one from the control group. Of these 50, 25 (50%) dropped out withoutproviding a reason (see Figure 2.1). Twenty-two dropouts (44%) completed theposttest. None of the variables used to check the randomization were predictive ofdropout.Statistical significance. Table 2.2 shows the results of the pretest and posttestmeasurements on intention-to-treat basis. As hypothesized, the treatment groupimproved statistically significant with respect to stress [t(176) = 11.76, P < .001]