Maria Schouten has obtained her doctorate!
On September 15, 2025, Maria Schouten successfully defended her PhD! With her dissertation titled “Enhancing depression treatment: Development and (cost‑)effectiveness of a digital add‑on alcohol intervention for young adults with co‑occurring depression and problematic alcohol use,” she makes an important contribution to scientific knowledge about comorbid depression and problematic alcohol use in young adults.
Maria opened the ceremony with an explanation of how depressive symptoms and increased alcohol use often co-occur in adolescents and young adults. The simultaneous presence of these issues presents significant risks, and there was a major gap in scientific knowledge regarding effective treatment approaches. This formed the foundation of her PhD research.
As part of this research, the online program Beating the Booze was developed. Beating the Booze is an online self-help intervention aimed at young adults who want to reduce or quit alcohol use. The study results show that the digital alcohol intervention can be considered (cost-)effective as an add-on to regular depression treatment.
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In the short term, the intervention was effective in reducing alcohol use, but it had no effect on depressive symptoms.
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In the longer term, it had a positive effect on both problematic alcohol use and participants’ quality of life.
During the opposition, interesting discussions took place about the scalability of the results, potential underlying issues, and the development process of the intervention. After the defense, Maria received her doctorate certificate from her supervisor Jack Dekker, followed by a beautiful laudatio by co-supervisor Matthijs Blankers. Congratulations, Maria!
