Telephone-Based Psychotherapy and Depression

Psychiatric Times
By Judith GrochReviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco Mar 22, 2007

SEATTLE, March 22 -- For depressed patients on medication but too sad to seek psychotherapy as well, lasting help may be available by phone researchers found in a follow-up study.

For more than 75% of nearly 400 patients, the positive effects of six months of brief telephone psychotherapy at the start of antidepressant medication endured for 18 months after the first session, including six months beyond the end of all phone therapy, said Evette Ludman, Ph.D., of the Group Health Cooperative Center for Health Studies here, and colleagues.

This study, reported by Dr. Ludman and colleagues in the April issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, was a follow-up to a 2004 report on the same sample of 393 patients, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The follow-up found that at 18 months, 77% of those given phone-based therapy reported that depression was "much" or "very much" improved, compared with only 63% of those receiving usual care.

In the 18-month analysis, the benefits of telephone psychotherapy in the first six months were sustained during the second six months when only brief booster sessions were provided. Significantly a "robust clinical benefit" endured for six months after all treatment contact was discontinued, the researchers found.

"As with weight control," Dr. Ludman said, "maintaining improvement is the hardest part of treating depression."

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