Phone Treatment Program Found Effective in Treating Depression
Depression can be a life-consuming ailment for both the individual suffering from the condition and his or her family. Recent research found that those patients who participate in a structured telephone program to manage their depression actually experience significant benefits and only a moderate increase in health care costs.
Science Daily recently posted a release that examined a report in the October issues of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Overall, organized treatment programs for depression that are integrated into primary care have proven to be effective across a wide range of patient populations and health care systems.
In their report, the authors wrote, "Broad implementation of improved depression care programs will depend on the balance of benefits and added costs. Depression has large economic effects outside the health care system, including disability, lost work productivity, reduced educational attainment and relationship disruption.”
A randomized trail compared two depression care programs with continued usual care. A group of 207 were assigned to telephone care management and 198 were assigned to telephone care management plus psychotherapy.
After a 24-month period, the telephone care management group experienced a gain of 29 depression-free days and a gain of $676 in costs. The care management plus psychotherapy group gained 46 depression-free days and a cost increase of $397.
"Willingness to pay for time free of depression is a simple (albeit far from perfect) method for summarizing various economic benefits of improved depression care," the authors wrote. "Our previous research suggests that primary care patients treated for depression are on average willing to pay approximately $10 (in 2000 U.S. dollars) for an additional day free of depression."
