A recent American scientific study revealed that receiving psychotherapy sessions through the exchange of text messages between the patient and the psychiatrist helps in treating non-severe cases of depression.
The study, published in the scientific journal Jama Network Open, showed that depressed patients who receive psychotherapy sessions by exchanging text messages with the doctor achieve the same amount of improvement compared to patients who attend weekly sessions via closed circuit television.
The clinical trial included 850 adults who were randomly selected to participate in psychotherapy sessions, whether through closed circuit television sessions or through exchanging text messages with specialized doctors over a period of 12 weeks.
The researchers found that the odds of missing therapy sessions were lower for those who received therapy via text messages than for those who attended sessions via closed circuits.
But volunteers participating in teletherapy sessions reported that doctors were more empathic with them, suggesting that the connection that develops between doctor and patient may be slightly stronger in the case of face-to-face sessions.
Researcher Patricia Arrian from the University of Washington School of Medicine says: “We were surprised to find that text message therapy achieves the same treatment results as closed-circuit sessions.” She added in statements to the American newspaper “The New York Times”: “We did not actually find any difference in the results.”
For his part, researcher Mark Olufsen, professor of psychiatry at the Irving Medical Center of Columbia University, told the newspaper that the results of this study support the idea of providing more treatment options for patients, indicating that it may be logical to offer treatment options via text messages to patients with non-severe depression.