Effectiveness of Telemental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Propensity Score Noninferiority Analysis of Outcomes

The COVID-19 pandemic forced governments to implement a range of public health measures that disrupted the personal and professional lives of many, including an abrupt adoption of telemental health services. Using data from a nonprofit counseling practice, we tested whether telemental health services delivered during the pandemic were inferior to face-to-face services delivered prior to the pandemic. We first characterized patients seeking therapy services before and during the pandemic to ascertain whether the demographics and presenting concerns of patients pre- and during COVID-19 differed and found that pandemic patients reported greater anxiety, greater overall distress, were more likely female and not partnered, and earned less than before the pandemic. We used a propensity score matching analysis to account for these differences and investigated whether or not telemental health therapy was inferior to face-to-face therapy. Based on the propensity-matched samples (2,180 patients in each condition), telemental health services were found not to be inferior to in-person services, allaying concerns about the effectiveness of telemental health services delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study also illustrates the usefulness of propensity matching for examining treatment effects in naturalistic settings.