Videocall delivered psychological interventions for treating depressive symptoms in primary care - a systematic review.

Background: Depression is a very common disorder and comorbidity. Primary care providers are the first medical contacts to diagnose and treat depression. Video calls are emerging communication tools to deliver psychological interventions.

Aims: To examine the effectiveness of videocall delivered psychological interventions to treat depressive symptoms in adult patients in primary care, as well as a systematic assessment of implementation factors.

Methods: We conducted a systematic literature search in PubMed Central, Embase, PsycInfo, Cochrane Library and the WHO COVID-19 database and included randomized controlled trials only. Two authors screened the studies and assessed the risk of bias independently (Cochrane RoB tool). We followed the PRISMA guidelines. The study protocol was published in PROSPERO (CRD42022295238). The results were synthesized narratively.

Results: Of 6.971 identified studies, we included six publications. Studies powered to detect clinically significant changes in primary outcomes, identified video calls to be effective for delivering complex psychological interventions in an integrated primary care setting.

Conclusion: Further research is needed to consolidate the findings on a larger scale and evaluate the effectiveness in comparison with alternatives such as telephone-delivered care. Results are promising and indicate the need for replication in larger studies as well as different health care settings.