CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 464Telemedicine and Telehealth ImplementationDigital Mental Health InterventionsMental Health Treatment and Access

Efficacy of Nurse Telehealth Care and Peer Support in Augmenting Treatment of Depression in Primary Care

Hunkeler, E. M.·2000·Archives of Family Medicine
DOI 10.1001/archfami.9.8.700
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Primary care treatment of depression needs improvement. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of 2 augmentations to antidepressant drug treatment. DESIGN: Randomized trial comparing usual care, telehealth care, and telehealth care plus peer support; assessments were conducted at baseline, 6 weeks, and 6 months. SETTING: Two managed care adult primary care clinics. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 302 patients starting antidepressant drug therapy. INTERVENTIONS: For telehealth care: emotional support and focused behavioral interventions in ten 6-minute calls during 4 months by primary care nurses; and for peer support: telephone and in-person supportive contacts by trained health plan members recovered from depression. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: For depression: the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and the Beck Depression Inventory; and for mental and physical functioning: the SF-12 Mental and Physical Composite Scales and treatment satisfaction. RESULTS: Nurse-based telehealth patients with or without peer support more often experienced 50% improvement on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale at 6 weeks (50% vs 37%; P =.01) and 6 months (57% vs 38%; P =.003) and on the Beck Depression Inventory at 6 months (48% vs 37%; P =. 05) and greater quantitative reduction in symptom scores on the Hamilton scale at 6 months (10.38 vs 8.12; P =.006). Telehealth care improved mental functioning at 6 weeks (47.07 vs 42.64; P =.004) and treatment satisfaction at 6 weeks (4.41 vs 4.17; P =.004) and 6 months (4.20 vs 3.94; P =.001). Adding peer support to telehealth care did not improve the primary outcomes. CONCLUSION: Nurse telehealth care improves clinical outcomes of antidepressant drug treatment and patient satisfaction and fits well within busy primary care settings.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1001/archfami.9.8.700

Cites

43 of 43 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Having a simple self-administered measure to complete either in the clinic or by telephone administration would save clinicians the time needed to inquire about the presence and severity of each of the 9 DSM-IV symptoms to assess outcomes.

    “Having a simple self-administered measure to complete either in the clinic or by telephone administration (e.g., nurse administration23 or interactive voice recording24) would save clinicians the time needed to inquire about the presence and severity of each of the 9 DSM-IV symptoms to assess outcomes.”

    From The PHQ-9: Validity of a brief depression severity measure (2001) · cites this paper as [23]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 44 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Hunkeler, E. M.
Affiliations
Kaiser Permanente (US)
Corresponding author
Hunkeler, E. M.
Venue
Archives of Family Medicine
Publisher
CLOCKSS Archive
Published
2000-08-01
Volume
9
Issue
8
Pages
700-708
ISSN
1063-3987 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1001/archfami.9.8.700
OpenAlex
W1496950002
Cited by
464
References
44
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 8
FWCI
42.71
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Archives of Family Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
Keywords
depression, peer support, primary care, telephone counseling, emotional support, behavioral interventions, treatment satisfaction, psychological functioning, managed care
MeSH terms
Adult, Aged, Antidepressive Agents, Behavior Therapy, California, Combined Modality Therapy, Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Male, Managed Care Programs, Middle Aged, Nurses, Primary Health Care, Social Support, Time Factors, Treatment Outcome, Patient Satisfaction, Outcome Assessment, Health Care, Remote Consultation

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review