Face-to-face versus remote administration of the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale using videoconference and telephone.
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Date
2008-12-01
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Abstract
Although the use of telemedicine in psychiatry has a long history in providing clinical care to patients its use in clinical trials research has not yet been commonly employed Telemedicine allows for the remote assessment of study patients which could be done by a centralized highly calibrated and impartial cohort of raters independent of the study site This study examined the comparability of remote administration of the Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale MADRS by videoconference and by telephone to traditional face to face administration Two parallel studies were conducted one compared face to face with videoconference administration N 35 and the other compared face to face with telephone administration N 35 In each study depressed patients were interviewed independently twice once in the traditional face to face manner and the second time by either videoconference or teleconference A counterbalanced order was used The mean MADRS score for interviews conducted remotely by videoconference was not significantly different from the mean MADRS scores conducted by face to face administration mean difference 0 51 points P 388 intraclass correlation ICC 94 PUnder0001 Similarly the mean MADRS score for interviews conducted by telephone was not significantly different from the mean MADRS score conducted by face to face administration mean difference 0 74 points P 270 ICC 93 PUnder0001 Results of the study support the comparability of remote administration of the MADRS by both telephone and videoconference to face to face administration Comparability of the administration mode allows for remote assessment of patients in both research and clinical applications