Collaborative care for people with depression and anxiety

Many people suffer from depression and anxiety. These problems can make people feel sad, scared and even suicidal, and can affect their work, their relationships and their quality of life. Depression and anxiety can occur because of personal, financial, social or health problems.

‘Collaborative care’ is an innovative way of treating depression and anxiety. It involves a number of health professionals working with a patient to help them overcome their problems. Collaborative care often involves a medical doctor, a case manager (with training in depression and anxiety), and a mental health specialist such as a psychiatrist. The case manager has regular contact with the person and organises care, together with the medical doctor and specialist. The case manager may offer help with medication, or access to a ‘talking therapy’ to help the patient get better.

Collaborative care has been tested with patients in a number of countries and health care systems, but it is not clear whether it should be recommended for people with depression or anxiety.

In this review we found 79 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) (90 comparisons) including 24,308 patients worldwide, comparing collaborative care with routine care or alternative treatments (such as consultation-liaison) for depression and anxiety. There were problems with the methods in some of the studies. For example, the methods used to allocate patients to collaborative care or routine care were not always free from bias, and many patients did not complete follow-up or provide information about their outcomes. Most of the studies focused on depression and the evidence suggests that collaborative care is better than routine care in improving depression for up to two years. A smaller number of studies examined the effect of collaborative care on anxiety and the evidence suggests that collaborative care is also better than usual care in improving anxiety for up to two years. Collaborative care increases the number of patients using medication in line with current guidance, and can improve mental health related quality of life. Patients with depression and anxiety treated with collaborative care are also more satisfied with their treatment.

Authors' conclusions: 

Collaborative care is associated with significant improvement in depression and anxiety outcomes compared with usual care, and represents a useful addition to clinical pathways for adult patients with depression and anxiety.

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Background: 

Common mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, are estimated to affect up to 15% of the UK population at any one time, and health care systems worldwide need to implement interventions to reduce the impact and burden of these conditions. Collaborative care is a complex intervention based on chronic disease management models that may be effective in the management of these common mental health problems.

Objectives: 

To assess the effectiveness of collaborative care for patients with depression or anxiety.

Search strategy: 

We searched the following databases to February 2012: The Cochrane Collaboration Depression, Anxiety and Neurosis Group (CCDAN) trials registers (CCDANCTR-References and CCDANCTR-Studies) which include relevant randomised controlled trials (RCTs) from MEDLINE (1950 to present), EMBASE (1974 to present), PsycINFO (1967 to present) and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL, all years); the World Health Organization (WHO) trials portal (ICTRP); ClinicalTrials.gov; and CINAHL (to November 2010 only). We screened the reference lists of reports of all included studies and published systematic reviews for reports of additional studies.

Selection criteria: 

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of collaborative care for participants of all ages with depression or anxiety.

Data collection and analysis: 

Two independent researchers extracted data using a standardised data extraction sheet. Two independent researchers made 'Risk of bias' assessments using criteria from The Cochrane Collaboration. We combined continuous measures of outcome using standardised mean differences (SMDs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). We combined dichotomous measures using risk ratios (RRs) with 95% CIs. Sensitivity analyses tested the robustness of the results.

Main results: 

We included seventy-nine RCTs (including 90 relevant comparisons) involving 24,308 participants in the review. Studies varied in terms of risk of bias.

The results of primary analyses demonstrated significantly greater improvement in depression outcomes for adults with depression treated with the collaborative care model in the short-term (SMD -0.34, 95% CI -0.41 to -0.27; RR 1.32, 95% CI 1.22 to 1.43), medium-term (SMD -0.28, 95% CI -0.41 to -0.15; RR 1.31, 95% CI 1.17 to 1.48), and long-term (SMD -0.35, 95% CI -0.46 to -0.24; RR 1.29, 95% CI 1.18 to 1.41). However, these significant benefits were not demonstrated into the very long-term (RR 1.12, 95% CI 0.98 to 1.27).

The results also demonstrated significantly greater improvement in anxiety outcomes for adults with anxiety treated with the collaborative care model in the short-term (SMD -0.30, 95% CI -0.44 to -0.17; RR 1.50, 95% CI 1.21 to 1.87), medium-term (SMD -0.33, 95% CI -0.47 to -0.19; RR 1.41, 95% CI 1.18 to 1.69), and long-term (SMD -0.20, 95% CI -0.34 to -0.06; RR 1.26, 95% CI 1.11 to 1.42). No comparisons examined the effects of the intervention on anxiety outcomes in the very long-term.

There was evidence of benefit in secondary outcomes including medication use, mental health quality of life, and patient satisfaction, although there was less evidence of benefit in physical quality of life.