Effectiveness Study of Individual Online Treatment for Cybersex Addiction/Online Sexual Compulsive Behavior Disorder

Controlled Study of the Effectiveness of an Individual Online (E-Health) Psychological Intervention Program for Cybersex Addiction/Online Sexual Compulsive Behavior Disorder

Cybersex addiction, understood as a subtype of Internet addiction or a manifestation of Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder, is a growing phenomenon. Recent studies developed by our research group have revealed that about 10% of young people in Spain could be at risk of suffering or already suffer from this problem, which can lead to consequences beyond the addiction or compulsive behavior itself, such as low self-esteem, emotional problems, sexual dysfunction, infidelity, breakups, social isolation, development of paraphilias, increase of risky sexual behavior, problems with the law, etc.. Although some studies have been carried out so far, especially on the prevalence and characterization of the sociodemographic and psychological profile of people with this disorder, psychological intervention programs for this problem have hardly been developed, and studies on the effectiveness of such programs are very scarce. Furthermore, seeking psychological help for people with this type of problem is infrequent due in part to the stigma associated with sexual addictions. In this sense, e-health approaches can reach a potential audience of users who would not access treatment if they had to physically visit a clinic. For this reason, the present project seeks to evaluate the efficacy of an online intervention aimed at the treatment of cybersex addiction or online sexual compulsive behavior disorder in the general population. For this purpose, a sample of 100 patients with a risk or pathological profile will be randomly assigned to an experimental (n=50) or control group (n=50) with similar characteristics. All of them will undergo an online assessment. The experimental group will receive an individualized online program of twelve one-hour sessions. The study will be based on an experimental design of comparison between groups (experimental-control) with pretest-posttest-follow-up evaluation at 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months, to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention. For this purpose, descriptive and differential statistical analyses (t-tests and repeated measures ANOVA), Cohen's d test for effect size and regression analysis will be performed.

Inclusion Criteria:

• online sexual compulsive behaviors, and may or may not also have other offline sexual compulsive behaviors
• any gender or sexual orientation
• minimum score of 9-18 points on the Internet Sex Screening Test (ISST) of Delmonico (1997) in the Spanish adaptation of Ballester, Gil, Gómez and Gil (2010)

Exclusion Criteria:

• coocurrence of psychotic symptoms, cognitive impairment, or other serious mental conditions