Phone therapy treats depression

Although psychotherapy has proven to be effective for patients starting antidepressants, findings from a new study suggest that such therapy can provide benefits even if delivered over the telephone - an approach that may increase treatment rates. In a previous study, researchers had looked at the benefits of a telephone care manager who basically made sure that no patients fell through the cracks during follow-up. Researchers from the Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, USA, studied 600 people who were starting drug therapy for depression. The subjects were randomly selected to receive usual care alone or in combination with telephone care management (TCM) with or without telephone psychotherapy (TP). The participation rates for the TCM and TCM/TP groups were 97 percent and 93 percent, respectively. It was found that the patients in the TCM/TP group had a lower average depression score than the patients who only received usual care. In addition, 80 percent of TCM/TP-treated patients reported that their depression was much improved compared with only 55 percent of usual care patients. The proportion of "very satisfied" patients again favoured the TCM/TP group: 59 vs. 29 percent. The TCM group also experienced improvements compared with the usual care group, but the benefits were less pronounced than in the TCM/TP group. The researchers said that their next study would probably involve a comparison of telephone-based psychotherapy with traditional in-person psychotherapy.

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