Landmark Study in the British Journal of Psychiatry Open Highlights how Ieso's Digitally-enabled Therapy can Transform Mental Health Treatment

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Ieso Digital Health

03 Oct, 2018, 07:16 GMT

CAMBRIDGE, England, October 3, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

  • Treatment outcomes of psychological therapies and CBT in particular, have not changed over several decades.
  • This milestone study is opening a window to the future, demonstrating how treatment can be personalised, dramatically improving patient outcomes for the first time in over thirty years.

Ieso Digital Health, the UK's flagship provider of digitally-enabled CBT has today announced details of a landmark study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry Open (BJPsych Open) involving 2,200 NHS patients. Link to study https://bit.ly/2P7hkSf

The BJPsych Open study called 'Demographic and clinical predictors of response to internet-enabled cognitive-behavioural therapy for depression and anxiety' used information gathered from Ieso's unique dataset, including outcome measures and thousands of therapy transcripts, to explore how patient and service variables can predict patient response to CBT. These insights are helping improve psychological services where it matters and guiding the development of more tailored patient interventions.

Speaking about this BJPsych Open study Andy Blackwell, Group Chief Science & Strategy Officer of Ieso Digital Health and senior author of the study, said:

"Tackling the scale of the mental health problem requires innovation and technology. This milestone study shows how data collection at scale can deepen understanding into what really works in therapy, projecting a future where data-driven discovery will be used to transform mental health care delivery. Since this study, Ieso has treated more than 30,000 patients in total, extending our unique dataset considerably. The knowledge we are gaining from this data is tremendously exciting for the future of psychological therapy." 

The BJPsych Open study showed a variety of factors that can influence a patient's response to psychological therapy, including the nature and severity of their presentation as well as a range of demographic and service variables, for example, differences in patient waiting times for therapy, and length of time spent in treatment.

Ana Catarino, a Senior Scientist at Ieso Digital Health and lead author of the study, added: 

"Beyond its results, what is so important about this study is that it represents a future where advanced technologies will join clinical science to transform mental healthcare worldwide, through the development of personalised mental healthcare plans and adaptive interventions. Our aim is to provide the right care, at the right time, achieving the best outcome for every patient." 

Ieso Digital Health's accredited CBT therapists treat patients online, in real time, using typed conversation, a method that was validated in a clinical trial published in 2009(1). The transcripts from therapy sessions are analysed, and the distilled knowledge from the resulting dataset is used to guide therapists to deliver the best care for each individual patient, as well provide clinicians with continual professional development.

Ieso's study has been published in the British Journal of Psychiatry Open, a journal of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the professional medical body responsible for supporting psychiatrists throughout their careers, and in setting and raising standards of psychiatry in the United Kingdom. This study was led by Dr Andy Blackwell and Dr Ana Catarino along with other Ieso research scientists and in collaboration with experts from prestigious academic institutions around the world including the University of Cambridge, King's College London and Vanderbilt University.

About Ieso Digital Health

  • Ieso is the UK's largest provider of digitally-enabled, evidence-based mental health care, redefining the way that mental health care is delivered by making high-quality cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) accessible, accountable and affordable for the first time. It has 600 highly trained CBT therapists and has treated over 30,000 patients on the NHS, using its unique text-based technology platform.
  • Using the NHS-mandated outcomes measurement framework, Ieso has been able to deliver outcomes which are significantly better than other forms of therapy. Ieso's method has been clinically validated in a trial, published in The Lancet in 2009
  • Ieso is a multi-award-winning business and one of UK's fastest-growing technology companies, as lauded in the Deloitte Fast 50 awards. Ieso was also recognised as one of the Sunday Times Disruptors to Watch. The company was also awarded the accolade of 2017 Digital Innovation of the Year. Launched in the US in 2017 Ieso is accelerating growth there, with a blue-chip management team with deep industry expertise.

Key facts

  • One in four adults in the UK are estimated to suffer from a mental health problem in any given year (2,3)
  • A significant proportion remains undiagnosed or untreated (4).
  • The NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme is a large-scale initiative aimed at increasing access to evidence-based psychological therapy for common mental health disorders within NHS England whilst controlling costs (5).

References

  1. Kessler, D. et al. (2009) Therapist-delivered internet psychotherapy for depression in primary care: a randomised controlled trial. Lancet. 374: 628-34
  2. Ferrari AJ, Charlson FJ, Norman RE, Patten SB, Freedman G, Murray CJL, et al. Burden of Depressive Disorders by Country, Sex, Age, and Year: Findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. PLoS Med. 2013;10(11):e1001547.
  3. McManus S, Bebbington P, Jenkins R, Brugha T. Mental health and wellbeing in England. Health and Social Care Information Centre. 2016.
  4. McCrone P, Dhanasiri S, Patel A, Knapp M, Lawton-Smith S. Paying the price: the cost of mental health care in England to 2026. Br J Psychiatry [Internet]. 2008;184:386-92. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15123501%5Cnhttp://www.library.nhs.uk/HealthManagement/ViewResource.aspx?resID=290410 
  5. Clark DM. Implementing NICE guidelines for the psychological treatment of depression and anxiety disorders: the IAPT experience. Int Rev Psychiatry. 2011;23(4):318-27.

For further information about Ieso, please visit http://www.iesohealth.com/en-gb or to interview Andy Blackwell or Ana Catarino about this study, please contact:

C: Charlene Waterworth
E: c.waterworth@iesohealth.com
M: 01223-608-760

C: Rachel Dalton
E: rdalton@rdcommunications.ie
M: +353 863825895