An Integrative Engagement Model of Digital Psychotherapy: Exploratory Focus Group Findings.

BACKGROUND: Digital mental health interventions, such as 2-way and asynchronous messaging therapy, are a growing part of the mental health care treatment ecosystem, yet little is known about how users engage with these interventions over the course of their treatment journeys. User engagement, or client behaviors and therapeutic relationships that facilitate positive treatment outcomes, is a necessary condition for the effectiveness of any digital treatment. Developing a better understanding of the factors that impact user engagement can impact the overall effectiveness of digital psychotherapy. Mapping the user experience in digital therapy may be facilitated by integrating theories from several fields. Specifically, health science's Health Action Process Approach and human-computer interaction's Lived Informatics Model may be usefully synthesized with relational constructs from psychotherapy process-outcome research to identify the determinants of engagement in digital messaging therapy. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to capture insights into digital therapy users' engagement patterns through a qualitative analysis of focus group sessions. We aimed to synthesize emergent intrapersonal and relational determinants of engagement into an integrative framework of engagement in digital therapy. METHODS: A total of 24 focus group participants were recruited to participate in 1 of 5 synchronous focus group sessions held between October and November 2021. Participant responses were coded by 2 researchers using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Coders identified 10 relevant constructs and 24 subconstructs that can collectively account for users' engagement and experience trajectories in the context of digital therapy. Although users' engagement trajectories in digital therapy varied widely, they were principally informed by intrapsychic factors (eg, self-efficacy and outcome expectancy), interpersonal factors (eg, the therapeutic alliance and its rupture), and external factors (eg, treatment costs and social support). These constructs were organized into a proposed Integrative Engagement Model of Digital Psychotherapy. Notably, every participant in the focus groups indicated that their ability to connect with their therapist was among the most important factors that were considered in continuing or terminating treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Engagement in messaging therapy may be usefully approached through an interdisciplinary lens, linking constructs from health science, human-computer interaction studies, and clinical science in an integrative engagement framework. Taken together, our results suggest that users may not view the digital psychotherapy platform itself as a treatment so much as a means of gaining access to a helping provider, that is, users did not see themselves as engaging with a platform but instead viewed their experience as a healing relationship. The findings of this study suggest that a better understanding of user engagement is crucial for enhancing the effectiveness of digital mental health interventions, and future research should continue to explore the underlying factors that contribute to engagement in digital mental health interventions. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04507360; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04507360.

Treatment responder status and time to response as a function of hazardous drinking among active-duty military receiving variable-length cognitive processing therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder.

OBJECTIVE: A common concern is whether individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and hazardous drinking will respond to PTSD treatment or need a higher dose. In a sample of active-duty military, we examined the impact of hazardous drinking on cognitive processing therapy (CPT) outcomes and whether number of sessions to reach good end-state or dropout differed by drinking status. METHOD: Participants included 127 service members participating in a clinical trial of variable-length CPT. The Quick Drinking Screen was used to characterize drinking. Participants were categorized as treatment responders when they reached good end-state (<20 on the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5) or nonresponders if they completed 24 sessions or 18 weeks of treatment without good end-state. Survival analyses were used to compare time to dropout or good end-state between those with and without hazardous drinking. RESULTS: Those with hazardous drinking were as likely as those without to reach good end-state and no more likely to drop out. There were no differences in number of sessions to reach good end-state or dropout. On a gold-standard assessment, those with hazardous drinking evidenced more PTSD symptom reduction than those without. The overall proportion of participants with hazardous drinking decreased (30.7% to 18.6%), as did mean number of drinks per drinking day and drinks on the heaviest drinking day among those initially drinking hazardously. CONCLUSIONS: Results support using CPT for military personnel with PTSD and hazardous drinking and indicate that those with hazardous drinking can benefit from PTSD treatment without additional treatment sessions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Message-based psychotherapy for older adults: A cohort comparison study.

Objective: Digital Mental Health Interventions (DMHI) can diminish inequities in mental health care provision. As DMHIs increase in popularity, however, older adults may be unintentionally excluded due to barriers such as lack of awareness, internet access, digital tools, technological socialization and education, physiological accessibility, and communication technology infrastructure. The aim of this study was to examine longitudinal treatment engagement patterns and 15-week clinical outcomes of depressed and anxious older adults compared to a matched cohort of younger adults seeking treatment from a large asynchronous telemedicine provider. Methods: The 2,470 older adults (55+ years) and a matched cohort of younger adults (26-35 years) diagnosed with depression or anxiety were treated by licensed therapists via messaging 5 days a week. Patterns of treatment engagement on the platform were compared across groups by examining total number of days in treatment, days actively messaging on the platform, and average words and messages per week sent by patients over the entire period they remained in treatment. Symptoms were assessed every 3 weeks using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), and changes were compared across age groups over 15 weeks. Results: Older patients attended more days in treatment than younger patients, but there were no differences in number of days actively messaging on the platform, number of messages per week, or word count per week. The two age groups did not differ in their final anxiety or depressive symptoms when controlling for total number of weeks attended. Patients in the younger age group experienced a quicker rate of reduction than older adults in their anxiety, but not depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Among individuals willing to initiate care through a DMHI, older adults had overall similar engagement as younger adults and they showed similar improvement in symptoms of depression and anxiety. Given the advantages of message-based care for aiding a mental health workforce in serving larger numbers of individuals in need and the expected growth of the aging population, these findings could help healthcare systems in evaluating a variety of treatment options and delivery media for meeting the healthcare needs of the future.