As patients seeking mental health care grew more familiar with virtual mental health services during the COVID-19 pandemic, a majority began to prefer virtual visits to in-person visits with their mental health care provider, according to new research from Advocate Aurora Health researchers. Clinician perceptions of virtual mental health care visits followed a similar pattern, moving from initial skepticism to high satisfaction with the quality of the care.
Importantly, the study found that patients seeking virtual mental health care had significantly higher rates of attendance, greater numbers of visits and were more likely to complete treatments.
“With the need for mental health services substantially increasing, it’s vitally important that both patients and clinicians view virtual treatment as appealing and effective,” said the study’s lead author Mindy Waite, PhD, senior staff scientist for Advocate Aurora Research Institute and Aurora Psychiatric Hospital in Wauwatosa, Wis. “The superior attendance outcomes found in our analysis lend further credence to the idea that virtual visits are necessary for ensuring access to mental health care for our communities and potentially comparable to or better than in-person treatment.”
Dr. Waite and her research team analyzed survey and medical record data obtained as part of standard quality control efforts. The data showed that, as both patients and clinicians grew more familiar with virtual care they expressed increasing satisfaction with the virtual care experience, due potentially to a preference for the flexibility afforded by virtual visits.
“Patients indicated that virtual visits enabled them to pursue behavioral health care when in-person visits were prohibitive, due to living in remote communities or work responsibilities,” said Pete Carlson, president of Advocate Aurora Behavioral Health Services. “We feel it’s critical that virtual treatment options continue to be allowed after the pandemic subsides and the emergency health orders expire. The data support the continued use of virtual care, so it would be a disservice to our patients and our clinicians to do otherwise."
The full results of the study, “Virtual behavioral health treatment satisfaction and outcomes across time,” were published in the latest issue of the Research Institute’s Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews (JPCRR).
Additional articles published in Volume 9, Issue 3 of JPCRR include:
- Antibody response to third COVID-19 vaccine dose in patients with blood cancer;
- Asking the question ‘What matters to you?’ in a London intensive care unit;
- Use of electronic health record variables to identify delirium at the bedside;
- A brief review of cardiac metastasis after treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma;
- A Clin-IQ into whether home blood pressure monitoring is effective at controlling hypertension in African American patients;
- A patient-centered essay authored by an emergency medicine physician who connected with a new mother over a difficult diagnosis; and
- 2022 Health Care Systems Research Network conference proceedings.
In addition to Dr. Waite, Advocate Aurora-affiliated authors featured in this issue include oncologists Sigrun Hallmeyer, MD, Michael Mullane, MD, Stephen Medlin, DO, and James Weese, MD; geriatrician Ariba Khan, MD; the transplant surgery team of Gaurav Jain, MD, Mathew Otto, PA-C, Mubeen Mohammed Abdul, MD, Manpreet Chadha, MD, and Ajay Sahajpal, MD; family physician Wilhelm Lehmann, MD, MPH, emergency physician Karis Tekwani, MD; researchers Veronica Fitzpatrick, DrPH, Rebecca Nye, MPH, and Deborah Simpson, PhD; and biostatisticians James Adefisoye, PhD, and Yunqi Liao.
Visit aah.org/jpcrr to access the current issue or archived journal content. Follow @JPCRR on Twitter for regular publication updates and various patient-centered news.
Published by Advocate Aurora Health, the Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews is a PubMed-indexed medical journal dedicated to scholarly works aimed at improving patient-centered care practices, health outcomes and patient experiences. Quarterly JPCRR circulation exceeds 30,000 readers hailing from around the world.
To learn more about Advocate Aurora’s research, visit aah.org/research.