Phone Therapy Found to Be Beneficial For Depression

A study published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology found that patients who received therapy by phone for their depression showed more improvement than those who didn’t.

The most common form of treatment used in America today for depression is prescription medication administered by the individual’s primary care doctor. Therapists recommend that people get some form of therapeutic counseling in combination with their medication, but only half of all patients taking medication for depression actually seek counseling. In an effort to find more effective ways of administering therapy to depressed patients, researchers at the Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, Washington performed a study to determine how effective phone therapy sessions would be.

The study followed 393 participants over the course of 18 months. Half of the participants received only medication for their depression. The other half received a combination of medication and phone therapy. Those who received phone therapy were given 8 sessions focused on cognitive behavioral therapeutic techniques as well as 2-4 follow-up sessions.

Phone sessions were centered on cognitive behavioral therapy, a form of psychotherapy that traditionally takes less time than more involved techniques. Patients were taught how to change negative thinking patterns, encouraged to begin participating in activities they enjoyed, and devised a plan for maintaining their progress. All the therapists were masters-level counselors.

At the end of the study, 77% of those patients who received the combination of medication and phone therapy for their depression showed marked improvement. Only 63% of those who didn’t receive therapy showed the same amount of improvement. Clearly, a combination of therapy and medication is the best line of treatment for depression, and phone therapy is effective in lieu of face-to-face therapy sessions.

Researchers at The Group Health Cooperative, a nonprofit health organization that acts as a middleman between care and coverage, hope that this will lead to more depression patients receiving therapy along with their prescription medication treatments. If therapy could be more convenient, as is the case with phone therapy, their belief is that more people will make use of counseling.

Their next goal is to compare phone therapy to traditional counseling provided in an office setting.

© Copyright 2007 Insight Journal Online Magazine.

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