Details
Question
- What is the clinical effectiveness of psychological assessment delivered via telehealth for patients with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, or anxiety?
- What is the clinical effectiveness of psychological treatment delivered via telehealth for patients with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, or anxiety?
Key Message
Limited evidence suggests that psychological assessment via telehealth is clinically effective in patients with depression. No relevant evidence was identified to support use of telehealth for psychological assessment in patients with anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder. There was concurrence among included studies that the evidence supports that psychological treatment delivered by telehealth is clinically effective and that the magnitude of the treatment effect is comparable when the same intervention is provided by telehealth or by traditional means such as in-person/same room therapy. In general, the overall risk of bias in the included studies is considered to be medium. Key limitations are the lack of patient blinding in all the included randomized controlled trials, the broad patient populations of interest, and the large number and diversity of the scales and instruments used to measure treatment effects which complicated making comparisons between studies.