Goldberg SB, Buck B, Raphaely S, Fourtney JC. (2018). Measuring psychiatric symptoms remotely: A systematic review of remote measurement-based care. Current Psychiatry Reports. 20(81). doi: 10.1007/s11920-018-0958-z
Researchers conducted a literature search for studies evaluating approaches to remote tracking of patient psychiatric symptoms and transmission of patient symptom information to health care providers (remote measurement-based care; RMBC). The literature search returned a sample of 42 papers describing 36 studies. Studies most often described RMBC that used smartphone apps (n=16), text messaging (n=11), or websites (n=9) to track symptoms of depression (n=12), psychotic disorders (n=6), or substance use (n=5) in primary care (n=7) or research clinics (n=7). Clinical effectiveness was reported in 24 studies. Significant clinical improvement was observed in 8 out of 9 studies evaluating effects of RMBC using a single group design (i.e. no comparison group), though most of these studies (n=7) evaluated measurement-based care as a part of multicomponent intervention. Intervention conditions including RMBC outperformed comparison conditions in both non-randomized controlled trials and in 7 out of 13 randomized controlled trials (RCTs), but most of these studies did not include a control condition that allowed researchers to isolate effects of RMBC (e.g, RMBC was evaluated as a part of a multicomponent intervention and the control condition isolated effects of the multicomponent intervention, not RMBC). Three RCTs used a design that allowed researchers to isolate the effects of RMBC, one found a larger effect of RMBC compared to treatment as usual. In addition to clinical outcomes, studies found interventions including RMBC were associated with improved treatment attendance and treatment seeking (n=3) and medication adherence (n=2), but effects of RMBC could not be isolated. Most participants reported feeling satisfied (77-87%) with remote measurement-based care (alone or with intervention components) and that they would recommend it a friend (61-100%).