NCT03291600

Virtual Psychiatric Care for Perinatal Depression

Virtual Psychiatric Care for Perinatal Depression (Virtual-PND): A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 76 (actual)
• Sponsor: Women's College Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: Female
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Perinatal depression occurs in 15% of pregnant women and new mothers, yet as few as 1 in 5 receive adequate treatment. It has a negative impact on the woman herself, as well as a potential for serious consequences for her child. Virtual psychiatric care is a potential model that may provide accessible mental health care during this time, as barriers to in-person care often include unpredictable infant schedules, competing childcare demands, or travel/cost challenges. The Virtual-PND intervention consists of 12-weeks of the option of supplementing in-person psychiatric care with secure, in-home real-time video-visits through the Ontario Telemedicine Network. This pilot RCT will demonstrate the feasibility of proceeding to a future large-scale RCT evaluation of virtual psychiatric care for this population.

Detailed description

This is a two-site pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the feasibility of a Virtual Psychiatric Care for Perinatal Depression (Virtual-PND) intervention protocol, comparing virtual care to in-person care only. Participants will be pregnant or postpartum women with a major depressive disorder who are referred for care at one of the participating study sites. Each study site is a specialist reproductive psychiatric program where women from the greater Toronto area are referred, and generally treated with in-person care. Those randomized to the virtual care group will be able to receive psychiatric visits with video-based visits. Those randomized to the in-person care group will receive in-person care only, as per usual clinical practice at the study sites. The length of the active treatment phase will be 12 weeks from enrolment. The overall objective of this pilot RCT is to determine the feasibility of conducting a larger RCT to evaluate the efficacy of the treatment model, comparing outcomes among those with and without access to virtual care, and cost-effectiveness.

Conditions

• Perinatal Depression

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Virtual Psychiatric Care	Virtual psychiatric care for perinatal depression will be offered to participants, in addition to care as usual, for a 12-week period by their treating perinatal psychiatrist. Virtual care will be delivered by video-based visits through the Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN). The treating psychiatrist may request that an intervention group participant present for in-person care at any visit, and this may include need for behavioural activation, or another health-related indication at the discretion of the treating psychiatrist.

Timeline

• Start date: 2017-10-24
• Primary completion: 2018-12-31
• Completion: 2018-12-31
• First posted: 2017-09-25
• Last updated: 2019-02-05

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Canada