Texting cures depression?….as effective as video consultation

A new clinical trial found that patients with depression who received psychotherapy via text or voice messages showed the same therapeutic effects as patients who received weekly video telemedicine. This was reported on the 23rd (local time) by the health and medical webzine ‘Health Day’ based on a paper by researchers at the University of Washington published in Psychiatric Services.

These findings suggest that during a time when people often have difficulty accessing mental health care, text-message psychotherapy could be a viable alternative to in-person or videoconference delivery, allowing for more immediate, on-demand treatment, the researchers said.

With traditional office services shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, attention has shifted to telehealth as a means of delivering psychiatric care. But are in-person video sessions the only effective way to provide telehealth services?

In this study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 215 adults with depression received 12 weeks of telemedicine from Talkspace, a digital mental health management company. Talkspace had no role in funding the study.

Half of the patients received standard weekly video consultations with a therapist for 30 to 45 minutes. The other half received psychotherapy via voice or text message. Patients were able to interact with their therapists whenever they wanted.

The researchers, led by current NIMH director Patricia Arean, who was a professor at the University of Washington when the study was conducted, reported that at the halfway point (six weeks), 28 patients receiving message-based psychotherapy and 27 patients receiving televideo therapy showed “significant symptom improvement,” defined as at least a 50 percent reduction in scores on a standardized questionnaire designed to measure mental health.

Those who did not reach their goals by six weeks received six more weeks of treatment, which included weekly videoconferencing and message-based therapy, or monthly videoconferencing and message-based therapy. By the end of the 12-week study, the researchers found no substantial differences in outcomes among those who received videoconferencing or text/voice message therapy. Patients in each group showed similar improvements in anxiety and overall functioning.

One big difference there was. Those who received message-based therapy saw symptom improvement last an average of 7.8 weeks, which was significantly longer than the 4.9 weeks observed in the video therapy group. “These findings have important implications, given the difficulties many people face in accessing traditional psychotherapy,” the researchers wrote.

The paper can be found at the following link (