Some patients may require or wish to take advantage of the management of their mental health conditions by clinicians via telephone. Is this means of treatment or support effective in helping patients reduce symptoms or avoid relapse?
Telephonic medical management is embryonic because communication of symptoms is seldom done on accurate basis over telephone. Whether physical or mental, the allopathic therapy depends on symptomatic treament by the medical practitioner. This requires personal /clinical examination , battery of investigative lab tests , diagnosis and treatment. However, in sustained medical treatment, follow-up by telephony is an option that can be exercised on discriminative basis.
According to littérature, therapeutical alliance is very similar when face-to-face and visuo-conference are compared (in fact the therapists were the ones that saw a difference in alliance, but the patients did not). This means would have to be combined with regular visits for pharmacotherapy. For a discussion see:
Assessment of the therapeutic alliance in face-to-face or videoconference treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder. Vanessa Germain, André Marchand, Stéphane Bouchard, Stéphane Guay, Marc-Simon Drouin. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 02/2010; 13(1):29-35.
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