Impact of COVID-19 social distancing measures on mental health care treatment outcomes for common mental disorders in the Netherlands:: Videoconferencing therapy vs in-person interventions

In March 2020, the Dutch government began implementing measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and to reduce the burden to the national healthcare system. Historically, Dutch mental healthcare has been slow to implement and utilise digital interventions, however, the new public health policies regarding social distancing presented an acute and emergent need to do so. Despite therapists’ concerns regarding its efficacy and potential technical challenges, countless mental healthcare professionals turned to videoconference therapy to conduct generalistic Basic Mental Healthcare outpatient treatments. This paradigm shift presented a rare opportunity to examine whether videoconferencing therapy yields comparable results to in-person interventions for common mental health disorders. Arkin, a large mental healthcare facility and research institute in central Amsterdam, collects routine outcome monitoring data for patients under its care, to support shared decision-making. For...Show moreIn March 2020, the Dutch government began implementing measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and to reduce the burden to the national healthcare system. Historically, Dutch mental healthcare has been slow to implement and utilise digital interventions, however, the new public health policies regarding social distancing presented an acute and emergent need to do so. Despite therapists’ concerns regarding its efficacy and potential technical challenges, countless mental healthcare professionals turned to videoconference therapy to conduct generalistic Basic Mental Healthcare outpatient treatments. This paradigm shift presented a rare opportunity to examine whether videoconferencing therapy yields comparable results to in-person interventions for common mental health disorders. Arkin, a large mental healthcare facility and research institute in central Amsterdam, collects routine outcome monitoring data for patients under its care, to support shared decision-making. For the purposes of this study, basic mental healthcare patients (N = 1392) were divided into three cohorts: Treatments performed prior to, treatments performed partially during, and treatments performed entirely during the COVID-19 lockdown; and pre- and post-test data were used to compare outcomes. Across the three cohort conditions, there were no differences in the treatment outcomes for videoconferencing therapy conducted during lockdowns, as compared to in-person interventions done prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, or blended treatments that had commenced as in-person treatment before the pandemic and then transitioned to videoconferencing during the lockdown. This observational study seems to indicate that videoconferencing and in-person therapies can produce similar clinical results in Basic Mental Healthcare patients with common mental health disorders, bolstering the findings of other meta-analyses and randomized controlled studies investigating this topic.Show less

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Impact of COVID-19 social distancing measures on mental health care treatment outcomes for common mental disorders in the Netherlands: Videoconferencing therapy vs in-person interventions