Measuring Depression and Pain with Home Health Monitors.

The objective of this pilot study was to test the feasibility of using home health monitors toadminister standardized measures for depression and pain in a Veterans Affairs (VA) patientpopulation. Five patients were recruited from a larger study of collaborative depression care,and were asked to use Viterion™ 100 Telehealth monitors to transmit depression (PatientHealth Questionnaire-9) and pain severity (SF36-V bodily pain items) scores on a weekly basisfor 24 weeks. Information was received and reviewed by a nurse care manager, who recommendedtreatment changes as appropriate. The care manager occasionally followed up reportsof changes in symptom severity with phone calls; in one case, she called to inquire whya patient was not submitting data. Overall, four patients were able to use the monitors successfullyand frequently. Patient satisfaction was high: 5 of 5 reported that they would usemonitors again, and 3 of 5 preferred monitors to phone or mail for completing questionnaires.Patients expressed no concerns about privacy. The data allowed tracking of the longitudinalinterrelationship between depression and pain severity. However, the monitors were limitedin their ability to display questionnaire items, and the system could neither directly computemeasure scores nor transfer data to patient medical records. These results suggest that withmodifications, home health monitoring shows promise for monitoring symptom severity fora variety of medical and mental health conditions, for either clinical or research purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]