Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39801307›Full record

ArticleJMIR mHealth and uHealth2025

mHealth-Augmented Care for Reducing Depression Symptom Severity Among Patients With Chronic Pain: Exploratory, Retrospective Cohort Study.

Dan Holley, Amanda Brooks, Matthew Hartz, Sudhir Rao, Thomas Zaubler

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Dan HolleyClinical Operations, NeuroFlow, Inc, 1601 Market St, Suite 1500, Philadelphia, PA, 19103, United States, 1 3026893520.ORCID 0000-0002-3322-8541
Amanda BrooksClinical Operations, NeuroFlow, Inc, 1601 Market St, Suite 1500, Philadelphia, PA, 19103, United States, 1 3026893520.ORCID 0009-0001-5450-9422
Matthew HartzData and Engineering, NeuroFlow, Inc, Philadelphia, PA, United States.ORCID 0009-0008-0334-696X
Sudhir RaoPain and Spine Specialists, Mt. Airy, MD, United States.ORCID 0000-0001-5848-3920
Thomas ZaublerClinical Operations, NeuroFlow, Inc, 1601 Market St, Suite 1500, Philadelphia, PA, 19103, United States, 1 3026893520.ORCID 0000-0001-5473-8893

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Background: Depression and chronic pain are commonly comorbid, mutually reinforcing, and debilitating. Emerging approaches to mobile behavioral health care (mHealth) promise to improve outcomes for patients with comorbid depression and chronic pain by integrating with existing care models to bolster support and continuity between clinical visits; however, the evidence base supporting the use of mHealth to augment care for this patient population is limited. Objective: To develop an evidence base that sets the stage for future research, we aimed to explore the associations between changes in depression severity and various integrated care models, with and without mHealth augmentation, among patients with comorbid depression and nonmalignant chronic pain. Methods: Our team leveraged retrospective, real-world data from 3837 patients with comorbid depression and nonmalignant chronic pain who received integrated behavioral health care (IBH) at a subspecialty pain clinic. We analyzed one IBH-only, non-mHealth cohort (n=2765), an mHealth-augmented cohort (n=844), and a collaborative care (CoCM)+mHealth cohort (n=136), which were supported by the NeuroFlow mHealth platform, and a pre-CoCM mHealth cohort (n=92), which was supported by the mHealth platform for 3 months prior to beginning the chronic pain treatment. We evaluated changes in depression severity between treatment cohorts via longitudinal analyses of both clinician- and mHealth-administered Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) assessments. Results: mHealth-augmented integrated care led to significantly greater proportions of patients reaching clinical benchmarks for reduction (725/844, 86% vs 2112/2765, 76%), response (689/844, 82% vs 2027/2765, 73%), and remission (629/844, 75% vs 1919/2765, 69%) compared with integrated care alone. Furthermore, hierarchical regression modeling revealed that patients who received mHealth-augmented psychiatric CoCM experienced the greatest sustained reductions in on-average depression severity compared with other cohorts, irrespective of clinical benchmarks. In addition, patients who engaged with an mHealth platform before entering CoCM experienced a 7.2% reduction in average depression severity before starting CoCM treatment. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that mHealth platforms have the potential to improve treatment outcomes for patients with comorbid chronic pain and depression by providing remote measurement-based care, tailored interventions, and improved continuity between appointments. Moreover, our study set the stage for further research, including randomized controlled trials to evaluate causal relationships between mHealth engagement and treatment outcomes in integrated care settings.

Indexed as

Chronic PainDepressionAdultAgedCohort StudiesFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedRetrospective StudiesSeverity of Illness IndexTelemedicineappassessmentaugmented carebehavioralbehavioral health carechronic paincomorbiditydepressiondigital health careintegratedlongitudinalmental healthmHealthmobile healthpainpsychiatricpsychiatric screeningspsychiatryscreeningself-help

Identifiers

PMID39801307
PMCPMC11741195

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.