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Data availability
The IPD analyzed in this study cannot be shared publicly because restrictions related to participant consent, ethics approvals and institutional agreements apply. For data access, please submit a request to the corresponding author (L.T.) and the last senior author (E.K.). Access requests will be considered in consultation with all co-authors who contributed the IPD, and an initial response will be provided within 2 weeks. Access can be granted upon approval from all relevant data contributors, provided that an appropriate data-sharing agreement is in place, the original studies permit onward data sharing under their participant consent and ethics approvals, and the proposed analysis plan has been approved by the data contributors. Any shared data may be used only for the approved research purposes.
Code availability
The R code used for data analysis is publicly available at https://osf.io/azq5k/files/osfstorage.
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Acknowledgements
We extend our sincere gratitude to our co-authors for their willingness to participate in the SYNTHESIS IPD project, recruit participants, share the primary data, contribute to the feedback and collaborate on this study. We also thank C. A. Crawford from the Department of Psychology, Indiana University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, USA, for his key scientific and technical contributions to the SYNTHESIS IPD project, specifically by leading the data preparation and sharing data for his relevant trial included in the project.
Funding
A.R. was funded by the company (Meru Health Inc) by the Research Council of Finland (grant 259764). F.W.B. was funded by the Dutch Cancer Society, Alpe d’HuZes (VU 2010–4808). J.M.-M. was supported by a ‘Miguel Servet’ research contract from the Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII: CP21/00080) and received support from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, UK, and the Spanish CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP CB22/02/00052; ISCIII). J.M. was funded by grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) 1046875, Beyond Blue and Windemere. J.N. was funded by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council grant (2008839) and Australian Medical Research Future Fund grant (1145382). R.M.F.K. was funded by a Norwegian Research Council (309264). E.K. was funded by a Veni grant from Dutch Research Council (Veni.195.215 6806). The other authors declare no relevant funding.
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
A.R. has equity ownership in Meru Health Inc. F.W.B. received Speaker fees from Servier, MedScape and MedTalks. N.R.F. has equity in Two Chairs, a tech-enabled behavioral health company headquartered in San Fransisco, CA. The other authors declare no competing interests.
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Nature Mental Health thanks Inés Nieto, Xin Wang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.
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Tong, L., Panagiotopoulou, OM., Miguel, C. et al. An individual participant data meta-analysis of predictors of adherence to internet-based interventions for depression. Nat. Mental Health (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-026-00707-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-026-00707-4


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