Connolly Gibbons Mary Beth, Duong Lang, Chiu Rachel Y, Crits-Christoph Paul, Gallop Robert, Mandell David, Barg Olga, Newman Cory F, Brown Lily A, Oquendo Maria A
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Department of Mathematics, West Chester University, West Chester, PA, USA.
Psychother Res. 2024 Jul 21:1-11. doi: 10.1080/10503307.2024.2375231.
Although telehealth psychotherapies have been studied for over 20 years, mental health services remained largely delivered in person until the COVID-19 pandemic forced clinics to reconsider the utility of telehealth psychotherapy. This study aims to compare patient engagement in in-person versus telehealth services in outpatient psychotherapy for mood and anxiety disorders.
A cohort investigation was conducted, using a propensity score matched sample, extracted from an electronic health record (EHR) to compare engagement in psychotherapy for 762 patients who used in-person services before the pandemic to a cohort of 762 patients who used telehealth psychotherapy after the onset of COVID-19. The authors compared cohorts on initial engagement in psychotherapy services following an initial intake, number of psychotherapy sessions attended, and the rate of missed sessions.
There was a 26% increase in the total number of individual psychotherapy sessions attended when the clinics transitioned to telehealth services ( < .001). In addition, patients who received telehealth psychotherapy were five times more likely to not cancel or miss any scheduled sessions ( < .001).
These results indicate that telehealth services may result in improved treatment engagement for outpatient centers focused on brief evidence-based psychotherapies for mood and anxiety disorders.
尽管远程医疗心理治疗已被研究了20多年，但在2019冠状病毒病大流行迫使诊所重新考虑远程医疗心理治疗的效用之前，心理健康服务大多仍以面对面方式提供。本研究旨在比较门诊心理治疗中，面对面服务与远程医疗服务在治疗情绪和焦虑障碍患者时的参与度。
进行了一项队列研究，使用倾向得分匹配样本，该样本取自电子健康记录（EHR），以比较762名在大流行前使用面对面服务的患者与762名在2019冠状病毒病爆发后使用远程医疗心理治疗的患者在心理治疗中的参与度。作者比较了两组患者在初次就诊后对心理治疗服务的初始参与度、参加的心理治疗疗程数量以及错过疗程的比率。
当诊所转向远程医疗服务时，参加的个体心理治疗总疗程数增加了26%（<0.001）。此外，接受远程医疗心理治疗的患者取消或错过任何预定疗程的可能性降低了五倍（<0.001）。
这些结果表明，对于专注于基于证据的简短心理治疗以治疗情绪和焦虑障碍的门诊中心，远程医疗服务可能会提高治疗参与度。
