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The Impact of COVID-19 and Telehealth Services on Attrition Rates in Psychotherapy

Attrition in psychotherapy has been identified as a significant obstacle in the productive delivery of mental health services. Defined generally as the ending of a treatment prior to proper optimal benefit, attrition both hinders treatment efficacy and costeffectiveness in therapy. With the demands...

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Autores principales: Hellstern, Rylan B., Robinson, W. David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9873205/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36711078
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10591-023-09661-0
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author Hellstern, Rylan B.
Robinson, W. David
author_facet Hellstern, Rylan B.
Robinson, W. David
author_sort Hellstern, Rylan B.
collection PubMed
description Attrition in psychotherapy has been identified as a significant obstacle in the productive delivery of mental health services. Defined generally as the ending of a treatment prior to proper optimal benefit, attrition both hinders treatment efficacy and costeffectiveness in therapy. With the demands for quality mental health services increasing, resources must be identified to reduce barriers to such services. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the emergence of one potential resources: telehealth services. The current study aims to identify how COVID-19 and telehealth services have influenced attrition by analyzing attrition rates from both before and during the pandemic in a community health center where a transition to telehealth was made at the start of the pandemic. In addition, the variables of age, gender, socioeconomic status, and insurance coverage were also tested as potential predictors of attrition. Using de-identified patient information, clients who had participated in therapy services within a six-month period at a community health center (N = 329) were selected. A survival analysis was used to assess the time taken from initial appointment to the point of attrition. Results indicated that those who attended therapy via telehealth were less likely to stop attending treatment than those who participated in therapy in person. Individuals who used both in-person and telehealth visits were the least likely to terminate treatment prematurely. Clinical implications include the need for therapists to offer both telehealth and in-person services in order to give clients more resources to reduce a large barrier to needed mental healthcare treatment. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10591-023-09661-0.
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spelling pubmed-98732052023-01-25 The Impact of COVID-19 and Telehealth Services on Attrition Rates in Psychotherapy Hellstern, Rylan B. Robinson, W. David Contemp Fam Ther Original Paper Attrition in psychotherapy has been identified as a significant obstacle in the productive delivery of mental health services. Defined generally as the ending of a treatment prior to proper optimal benefit, attrition both hinders treatment efficacy and costeffectiveness in therapy. With the demands for quality mental health services increasing, resources must be identified to reduce barriers to such services. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the emergence of one potential resources: telehealth services. The current study aims to identify how COVID-19 and telehealth services have influenced attrition by analyzing attrition rates from both before and during the pandemic in a community health center where a transition to telehealth was made at the start of the pandemic. In addition, the variables of age, gender, socioeconomic status, and insurance coverage were also tested as potential predictors of attrition. Using de-identified patient information, clients who had participated in therapy services within a six-month period at a community health center (N = 329) were selected. A survival analysis was used to assess the time taken from initial appointment to the point of attrition. Results indicated that those who attended therapy via telehealth were less likely to stop attending treatment than those who participated in therapy in person. Individuals who used both in-person and telehealth visits were the least likely to terminate treatment prematurely. Clinical implications include the need for therapists to offer both telehealth and in-person services in order to give clients more resources to reduce a large barrier to needed mental healthcare treatment. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10591-023-09661-0. Springer US 2023-01-24 /pmc/articles/PMC9873205/ /pubmed/36711078 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10591-023-09661-0 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Hellstern, Rylan B.
Robinson, W. David
The Impact of COVID-19 and Telehealth Services on Attrition Rates in Psychotherapy
title The Impact of COVID-19 and Telehealth Services on Attrition Rates in Psychotherapy
title_full The Impact of COVID-19 and Telehealth Services on Attrition Rates in Psychotherapy
title_fullStr The Impact of COVID-19 and Telehealth Services on Attrition Rates in Psychotherapy
title_full_unstemmed The Impact of COVID-19 and Telehealth Services on Attrition Rates in Psychotherapy
title_short The Impact of COVID-19 and Telehealth Services on Attrition Rates in Psychotherapy
title_sort impact of covid-19 and telehealth services on attrition rates in psychotherapy
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9873205/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36711078
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10591-023-09661-0
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