Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is one of the most widespread mental illnesses and it has previously been shown that online therapy and online self-help tools such as the one investigated in this study can be successful in reducing not only symptoms of SAD but also symptoms of depression and increase the quality of life of participants. A substantial concern with digital health intervention tools is data security and privacy as many such tools have been found to be unsafe and easy targets for hacker attacks, potentially endangering personal (health) data of the users. For this research project, an internet-based program targeting social anxiety has been developed that can be used completely anonymously (i.e., without collecting an email address or other information that can or could potentially identify users). This new anonymized version will be compared in a partially randomized patient preference trial with an already well-evaluated version in which, as is common in other digital health applications, personal data such as the email address or other information from the users is used, for example, for login. Study objectives: 1. To investigate the efficacy of a completely anonymous version of the program "JOURNeY" based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and compare it to an already evidence-based non-anonymous version of the program regarding primary social anxiety symptoms, and secondary outcomes such as depressive symptoms, quality of life, usability, adherence to the program, internalized stigma, attitudes on help-seeking, and personality functioning. 2. To investigate patients' preferences and the influence of patients' preferences on outcome. 3. To explore how patient characteristics are associated with participants' preferences.
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Social Anxiety Symptoms
Timeframe: at baseline, 8 Weeks