Symposia
Telehealth/m-Health
Rachel C. Leonard, Ph.D.
Rogers Memorial Hospital
Pewaukee, Wisconsin
Many services rapidly transitioned from in-person to tele-behavioral health during the acute phase of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. While previous research on tele-behavioral health focused mostly on outpatient level of care, many higher-level services such as intensive outpatient program (IOP) and partial hospitalization program (PHP) started to utilize tele-behavioral health during the pandemic to assure continuum of care. This cross-sectional study compared the effectiveness of telehealth versus in-person partial hospitalization program (PHP) and intensive outpatient program (IOP) for depression. A sample of 1,864 patients (age 13 and older) completed either in-person (n = 1,224) or telehealth (n = 640) PHP/IOP between 2018 and 2021. Patients were 93.8% White, between the age of 13 to 76 years, and 67.5% were identified as female at birth. Results indicated that patients reported significant improvements on symptoms of depression, social anxiety, worrying, and engagement in activities from admission to discharge. There was no significant difference on all clinical outcomes between telehealth and in-person groups. Further analysis indicated that those who received telehealth reported faster improvement on their engagement with valued activities.