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. 2022 Jul;29(4):1342-1354.
doi: 10.1002/cpp.2713. Epub 2022 Feb 2.

Impact of COVID-19 social distancing measures on routine mental health care provision and treatment outcome for common mental disorders in the Netherlands

Edwin de Beurs  1   2 , Matthijs Blankers  1   3   4 , Jaap Peen  1 , Clara Rademacher  2 , Alicja Podgorski  2 , Jack Dekker  1   5
Affiliations

Impact of COVID-19 social distancing measures on routine mental health care provision and treatment outcome for common mental disorders in the Netherlands

Edwin de Beurs et al. Clin Psychol Psychother. 2022 Jul.

Abstract

Objective: The uptake of digital interventions in mental health care (MHC) has been slow, as many therapists and patients believe that in-person contact is essential for establishing a good working relationship and good outcomes in treatment. The public health policies regarding social distancing during the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic forced an abrupt transformation of MHC provisions for outpatients: Since mid-March 2020, nearly all in-person contact was replaced with videoconferencing. The COVID-19 crisis offered a unique opportunity to investigate whether MHC with videoconferencing yields inferior results as compared to in-person interventions.

Method: In a large urban MHC facility in the Netherlands, measurement-based care is routine practice. Outcome data are regularly collected to support shared decision making and monitor patient progress. For this study, pretest and post-test data were used to compare outcomes for three cohorts: treatments performed prior to, partially during and entirely during the COVID-19 lockdown. Outcomes were compared in two large data sets: Basic MHC (N = 1392) and Specialized MHC (N = 1040).

Results: Therapeutic outcomes appeared robust for COVID-19 conditions across the three cohorts: No differences in outcomes were found between treatments that were conducted during lockdown compared to in-person treatments prior to COVID-19, or treatments which started in-person, but needed to be continued by means of videoconferencing.

Discussion: Videoconferencing care during the COVID-19 pandemic had similar outcomes compared to traditional in-person care. These real-world results corroborate findings of previous randomized controlled studies and meta-analyses in which videoconferencing and in-person care has been directly compared in terms of clinical effectiveness.

Keywords: COVID-19; anxiety; depression; effectiveness; videoconferencing treatment.

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Conflict of interest statement

No conflicts to declare.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Composition of three cohorts based on the first and last treatment session date relative to 16 March 2020
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Change over time of OQ‐SD‐based T scores for three cohorts relative to COVID‐19 measures in B‐MHC (left) and S‐MHC (right)
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Proportion of patients in each outcome category in three cohorts relative to COVID‐19 measures in B‐MHC (left) and S‐MHC (right)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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