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Improvements in Depression Outcomes Following a Digital Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Intervention in a Polychronic Population: Retrospective Study
BACKGROUND: Digital mental health interventions have shown promise in reducing barriers to effective care for depression. Depression and related mental disorders are known to be highly comorbid with common chronic physical conditions, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. While some research has expl...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
JMIR Publications
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9297139/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35788442 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/38005 |
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author | Venkatesan, Aarathi Forster, Benjamin Rao, Prasanna Miller, Melissa Scahill, Michael |
author_facet | Venkatesan, Aarathi Forster, Benjamin Rao, Prasanna Miller, Melissa Scahill, Michael |
author_sort | Venkatesan, Aarathi |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Digital mental health interventions have shown promise in reducing barriers to effective care for depression. Depression and related mental disorders are known to be highly comorbid with common chronic physical conditions, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. While some research has explored the interaction dynamics of treating populations living with both mental and physical disorders, very little is known about such dynamics in digital care. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to examine the effectiveness of a 12-week, therapist-supported, app-based cognitive behavioral therapy program in improving symptoms of depression and anxiety. The studied population included adults with a heavy burden of chronic physical disease, including obesity and type 2 diabetes. METHODS: A total of 1512 participants with at least moderate depression were enrolled. The treatment cohort consisted of 831 (54.96%) participants who completed a follow-up assessment. The program included structured lessons and tools (ie, exercises and practices) and offered one-on-one weekly video counseling sessions with a licensed therapist for 12 weeks and monthly sessions thereafter. The clinically validated 8-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8) and the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7) were used to assess depression and anxiety, respectively. Linear mixed-effects modeling was employed to examine changes in depression and anxiety over time. Given correlation among various measures of program usage, a composite variable for depth of usage was used to analyze the correlation between usage and changes in depressive symptoms. Body weight changes from baseline were assessed primarily with digitally connected scales. RESULTS: Out of 831 participants in the treatment cohort, 74.5% (n=619) showed a clinically significant reduction in depressive symptom severity after 12 weeks, where follow-up PHQ-8 scores had shifted downward by at least one diagnostic category. In total, 67.5% (n=561) of the participants showed a reliable improvement in PHQ-8 scores as measured by the reliable change index. There was an average reduction of 5.9 (SD 5.2) points (P<.001) between baseline and follow-up. Greater program usage was correlated with greater likelihood of reliable improvement in depressive symptoms (odds ratio 1.3, 95% CI 1.1-1.5; P=.002). An exploratory analysis of body weight changes with a multilevel, mixed-effect model suggested that reliable improvement in depressive symptoms at follow-up was associated with significantly greater weight loss at 9 months (β=–1.11, P=.002). CONCLUSIONS: The results provide further support that digital interventions can support clinically meaningful improvements in depression. Some form of synergy in treatment of comorbid depression and obesity or diabetes could be studied in future research. The study was limited by postintervention participant attrition as well as the retrospective observational study design. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9297139 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | JMIR Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-92971392022-07-21 Improvements in Depression Outcomes Following a Digital Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Intervention in a Polychronic Population: Retrospective Study Venkatesan, Aarathi Forster, Benjamin Rao, Prasanna Miller, Melissa Scahill, Michael JMIR Form Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Digital mental health interventions have shown promise in reducing barriers to effective care for depression. Depression and related mental disorders are known to be highly comorbid with common chronic physical conditions, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. While some research has explored the interaction dynamics of treating populations living with both mental and physical disorders, very little is known about such dynamics in digital care. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to examine the effectiveness of a 12-week, therapist-supported, app-based cognitive behavioral therapy program in improving symptoms of depression and anxiety. The studied population included adults with a heavy burden of chronic physical disease, including obesity and type 2 diabetes. METHODS: A total of 1512 participants with at least moderate depression were enrolled. The treatment cohort consisted of 831 (54.96%) participants who completed a follow-up assessment. The program included structured lessons and tools (ie, exercises and practices) and offered one-on-one weekly video counseling sessions with a licensed therapist for 12 weeks and monthly sessions thereafter. The clinically validated 8-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8) and the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7) were used to assess depression and anxiety, respectively. Linear mixed-effects modeling was employed to examine changes in depression and anxiety over time. Given correlation among various measures of program usage, a composite variable for depth of usage was used to analyze the correlation between usage and changes in depressive symptoms. Body weight changes from baseline were assessed primarily with digitally connected scales. RESULTS: Out of 831 participants in the treatment cohort, 74.5% (n=619) showed a clinically significant reduction in depressive symptom severity after 12 weeks, where follow-up PHQ-8 scores had shifted downward by at least one diagnostic category. In total, 67.5% (n=561) of the participants showed a reliable improvement in PHQ-8 scores as measured by the reliable change index. There was an average reduction of 5.9 (SD 5.2) points (P<.001) between baseline and follow-up. Greater program usage was correlated with greater likelihood of reliable improvement in depressive symptoms (odds ratio 1.3, 95% CI 1.1-1.5; P=.002). An exploratory analysis of body weight changes with a multilevel, mixed-effect model suggested that reliable improvement in depressive symptoms at follow-up was associated with significantly greater weight loss at 9 months (β=–1.11, P=.002). CONCLUSIONS: The results provide further support that digital interventions can support clinically meaningful improvements in depression. Some form of synergy in treatment of comorbid depression and obesity or diabetes could be studied in future research. The study was limited by postintervention participant attrition as well as the retrospective observational study design. JMIR Publications 2022-07-05 /pmc/articles/PMC9297139/ /pubmed/35788442 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/38005 Text en ©Aarathi Venkatesan, Benjamin Forster, Prasanna Rao, Melissa Miller, Michael Scahill. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 05.07.2022. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Formative Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://formative.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. |
spellingShingle | Original Paper Venkatesan, Aarathi Forster, Benjamin Rao, Prasanna Miller, Melissa Scahill, Michael Improvements in Depression Outcomes Following a Digital Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Intervention in a Polychronic Population: Retrospective Study |
title | Improvements in Depression Outcomes Following a Digital Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Intervention in a Polychronic Population: Retrospective Study |
title_full | Improvements in Depression Outcomes Following a Digital Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Intervention in a Polychronic Population: Retrospective Study |
title_fullStr | Improvements in Depression Outcomes Following a Digital Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Intervention in a Polychronic Population: Retrospective Study |
title_full_unstemmed | Improvements in Depression Outcomes Following a Digital Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Intervention in a Polychronic Population: Retrospective Study |
title_short | Improvements in Depression Outcomes Following a Digital Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Intervention in a Polychronic Population: Retrospective Study |
title_sort | improvements in depression outcomes following a digital cognitive behavioral therapy intervention in a polychronic population: retrospective study |
topic | Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9297139/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35788442 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/38005 |
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