Belanger Heather G, Winsberg Mirène
Brightside Health Inc., Oakland, CA, United States.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, United States.
Front Psychiatry. 2022 Aug 22;13:998401. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.998401. eCollection 2022.
Telemental health platforms may increase access to care for older adults. Historically, older adults have tended to adopt new technologies at a slower rate which creates a perception that they may not be able to benefit from them. The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not older adult patients receiving psychiatric care for depression a telemental health platform achieve the same outcomes as younger adults.
Participant data utilized in the current investigation were obtained from a national mental health telehealth company (i.e., Brightside) and consisted of 12,908 U.S.-based adult patients receiving psychiatric care for depression between October, 2018 and January, 2022. Propensity matching was used to create an older and younger sample (n = 141 in each) using 23 covariates. These samples were then compared using repeated measures ANOVA on Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) scores at start of treatment, 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks, 14 weeks, and 16 weeks.
Despite matching, the groups still significantly differed on prior mental health treatment, such that more older adults reported having had prior mental health treatment. There were no other differences between the groups on assessed variables. Both younger and older adults had decreasing scores over time with no significant differences between them.
Older adults have similar improvement in depression symptom severity over time following initiation of psychiatric treatment a telehealth platform. These findings suggest that age is not a barrier to benefitting from telepsychiatric care.
远程心理健康平台可能会增加老年人获得护理的机会。从历史上看，老年人采用新技术的速度往往较慢，这让人觉得他们可能无法从中受益。本研究的目的是确定接受抑郁症远程心理健康平台治疗的老年患者是否能取得与年轻成年人相同的治疗效果。
本研究使用的数据来自一家全国性心理健康远程医疗公司（即Brightside），包括2018年10月至2022年1月期间在美国接受抑郁症治疗的12908名成年患者。倾向匹配法用于使用23个协变量创建一个老年样本和一个年轻样本（每组n = 141）。然后，使用重复测量方差分析对治疗开始时、6周、8周、10周、12周、14周和16周时的患者健康问卷-9（PHQ-9）得分进行比较。
尽管进行了匹配，但两组在先前的心理健康治疗方面仍存在显著差异，即更多的老年人报告曾接受过心理健康治疗。在评估变量方面，两组之间没有其他差异。随着时间的推移，年轻人和老年人的得分都在下降，且两者之间没有显著差异。
在通过远程医疗平台开始精神治疗后，老年人在抑郁症状严重程度方面随时间推移有类似的改善。这些发现表明，年龄不是从远程精神病护理中获益的障碍。
