Photo Credit: Melitas
The following is a summary of “Demographic and clinical characteristics associated with anxiety and depressive symptom outcomes in users of a digital mental health intervention incorporating a relational agent,” published in the January 2024 issue of Psychiatry by Chiauzzi et al.
Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) can address access barriers for those with anxiety and depressive symptoms, especially when incorporating relational agents, potentially easing provider workload.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to evaluate the effectiveness of Woebot for Mood & Anxiety (W-MA-02), a digital mental health (DMH) intervention featuring Woebot and a relational agent integrating elements of evidence-based psychotherapies, in individuals with clinical levels of depressive or anxiety symptoms to examine changes in self-reported symptoms over 8 weeks and their correlation with demographic and clinical factors.
They conducted an exploratory study, employing a single-arm design over 8 weeks with a cohort of 256 adults, which yielded non-mutually exclusive subsamples consisting of individuals with clinical levels of either depressive (PHQ-8 ≥ 10) or anxiety symptoms (GAD-7 ≥ 10) at baseline. Changes in Patient Health Questionnaire-8 (PHQ-8) scores at Week 8 were measured in the depressive subsample, while changes in Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) scores were measured in the anxiety subsample. Examined demographic and clinical characteristics of symptom changes using bivariate and multiple regression models. These models were adjusted for W-MA-02 utilization. The characteristics assessed included age, sex at birth, race/ethnicity, marital status, education, sexual orientation, employment status, health insurance, baseline levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms, as well as concurrent psychotherapeutic or psychotropic medication treatments during the study.
The results showed that depressive and anxiety subsamples were mainly composed of females, educated individuals, and non-Hispanic whites, with average ages of 38 and 37 years. At Week 8, the depressive subsample experienced significant reductions in depressive symptoms (mean change =—7.28, SD = 5.91, Cohen’s d = -1.23, P< 0.01). In contrast, the anxiety subsample showed significant reductions in anxiety symptoms (mean change = -7.45, SD = 5.99, Cohen’s d = -1.24, P<0.01). No significant associations were found between sex at birth, age, employment status, educational background, and Week 8 symptom changes. Significant associations were observed between depressive and anxiety symptom outcomes and sexual orientation, marital status, concurrent mental health treatment, and baseline symptom severity.
Investigators concluded that W-MA-02 shows early promise for reducing depression and anxiety, with potential user characteristics for further investigation.
Source: bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-024-05532-6