Interactive Computer-Based Treatment of Depression
CompTherapeutics is dedicated to our health partners who are treating patients with clinical depression, a worldwide behavioral health concern that often goes untreated. Based on the Behavioral Activation Therapy model, CompTherapeutics has developed a computer-based treatment that encourages people with depression to change their actions as well as their responses to life's stressors, allowing them to overcome their depression.
The Problem
Physicians and behavioral health specialists see many patients with mild to moderate depression. Patients sometimes feel ashamed of this disease and do not seek psychological services due to the perceived stigma associated with face-to-face treatment. Patients who do seek treatment may fail to receive an evidence-based course of treatment due to shortage of available services, cost associated with services, or limited access to the services. How can these individuals be served using the best interventions available while reducing burden to both the patient and to the health care system? How can patients build a more meaningful life and feel less depressed in a way that assists professional efficiency?
Our Solution
This interactive computerized program consists of 10 sessions, with each session 35-60 minutes in length. The individually administered outpatient therapy is designed to be provided in a professional office, medical center, employee assistance, or retail health practices.
Patients learn to identify and record activities, identify what actions give them feelings of pleasure, a sense of mastery, and accomplishment, keep consistent routines, and how to build into their lives the activities and interactions that are consistent with their own values, while addressing avoided but useful activities that lead to a more meaningful life. The program helps patients bring the spark back into their lives.
Research Support
The theory behind our program is based on the idea that depression can be effectively addressed by changing what one does and how one responds to life stressors. After years of research by independent laboratories around the world, the behavioral activation model has been incorporated into this interactive tool that provides a cost and time effective treatment that can be used in addition to or as an alternative to medication. The program, 'Building a Meaningful Life through Behavioral Activation©', can be prescribed by physicians and behavioral health specialists as one component of a stepped and collaborative care approach to depression treatment.
Over five years of development and testing, Building a Meaningful Life through Behavioral Activation© has been found to deliver an efficacious therapy for depression. The program focuses on changing the same important factors shown to positively influence mood as occurs when this therapy is delivered directly by a professional. The office version of the program requires only minimal staff supervision.
The Benefits
CompTherapeutics is committed to helping our health partners provide evidence based interventions, at reduced cost, in an easily prescribed fashion without negatively impacting professional workflow. At the same time, stigma is reduced, patients can learn at their own pace, and the professional can easily monitor progress in symptom reduction and observe changes in patient quality of life.
