Telephone therapy is ‘as good as face-to-face consultations

Telephone consultation can be as effective as face-to-face discussion in the treatment of clinical depression, a new study suggests. Experts from Brigham Young University conducted a trial run, which included 30 people newly diagnosed with major depression. Instead of eight scheduled visits to the clinic, the participants covered the same material during a series of phone calls with the therapist. The length of calls ranged from 21 to 52 minutes. Also, the patients did not receive any antidepressant medication.
After six months, it was noted that 42 per cent of participants had recovered from depression. In comparison, similar therapy conducted in person has a 50 per cent recovery rate.
Diane Spangler, a BYU psychology professor and a co-author on the study, said, “Offering a phone or webcam option for psychotherapy does appear warranted from an efficacy point of view. It’s more user-friendly, does not require the patient to commute, offers more flexibility of place and time and also, it has no side effects.”
However, one-third of participants declined the option for telephone consultations, choosing to directly interact with the psychotherapist.
Researchers suggest that for people who are comfortable with phone calls, therapy could soon be cheaper. The researchers cited a previous antidepressant drug trial that happened to include a telephone counselling component.
In that trial, the added benefit from phone counselling matched the results attained by the new BYU study.