Specific content for collaborative care: a systematic review of collaborative care interventions for patients with multimorbidity involving depression and/or anxiety in primary care

BACKGROUND: In primary care (PC) many patients suffer from multimorbidity involving depression and/or anxiety. Collaborative care (CC) has shown promising results for patients with depression, anxiety, and multimorbidity involving depression. However, specific content in CC for patients with multimorbidity involving depression and/or anxiety is unknown. OBJECTIVE: (i) To examine the effect of CC interventions in patients with multimorbidity involving depression and/or anxiety compared with usual care; (ii) to identify specific content of CC. METHODS: We conducted a systematic literature review of randomized controlled trial studies evaluating CC models for adults with multimorbidity involving depression and/or anxiety in PC settings. PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, and PsycInfo were searched in December 2019. We conducted a qualitative synthesis using an existing framework and developed a new framework to map the content for each studied intervention. RESULTS: We identified 1,447 studies. Twelve publications were included. Eleven had medium-to-high quality of CC for patients with multimorbidity involving depression. Specific content of CC in these studies is: A stepped care model, involving medication and psychotherapy delivered by a nurse or psychologist Care Manager (CM) focusing on problem-solving techniques; follow-up including monitoring of symptoms and function, and relapse prevention strategies; scheduled CM supervision. CONCLUSIONS: Specific content for CC for patients with multimorbidity involving depression is identified from current research. Research gaps were found regarding CC for patients with multimorbidity and anxiety, depression and anxiety, and depression and/or anxiety and more than 2 diseases.