NCT05118594

Testing a Precision Psychotherapy System for Low-income Patients

Open-trial to Prospectively Test the Feasibility of a Precision Psychotherapy System for Low-income Patients

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 111 (estimated)
• Sponsor: National Council of Scientific and Technical Research, Argentina · Other Government
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of an evidence-based system to recommend core interventions, before the beginning of treatment, to psychotherapists treating low-income patients with depressive or anxiety disorders.

Detailed description

After providing a written inform consent, potential patients will undergo a 2-weeks screening period to determine if they meet eligibility criteria. Baseline information (i.e., derived from semi-structured intake interviews and baseline clinical measures) from patients who meet eligibility criteria and consent to participate in the study, will be use to feed a machine learning algorithm, developed in a previous study, to perform individual predictions and determine which interventions (i.e., cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal, or patient-centered) will be recommended for the individual patient. This recommendation (i.e., about the most personally well-suited intervention for a given patient) will be provided to therapists before the beginning of treatment. Patients will be treated with 15 sessions of psychotherapy. The investigators will examine the extent to which therapists adhered to the recommended interventions as the primary outcome. The investigators will also examine patient symptomatic/functional improvement as a secondary outcome.

Conditions

• Major Depressive Disorder
• Dysthymic Disorder
• Specific Phobia
• Social Anxiety Disorder
• Panic Disorder
• Agoraphobia
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Pre-treatment psychotherapy recommendations	After patients complete an intake evaluation and prior to starting therapy, the assigned therapist will receive automatized feedback that consists of recommendations regarding the most suitable interventions (i.e., cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal or patient-centered) for each individual patients, based on patients' baseline characteristics and a machine learning algorithm developed in a previous study. Besides the interventions recommended, therapist will receive within the system guideline and tutorial videos showing how to deliver adequately the specific interventions recommended.

Timeline

• Start date: 2026-02-01
• Primary completion: 2026-11-01
• Completion: 2026-11-01
• First posted: 2021-11-12
• Last updated: 2021-11-18