Comprehensive mental health assessment with MindMetrix is associated with improved patient outcomes

Objective:Wide-ranging psychiatric assessments may improve patient outcomes when their results inform treatment decision-making. Specifically, symptoms relevant to diverse disorders may be expeditiously alleviated when etiology is correctly identified at outset. This study aimed to evaluate how MindMetrix, a wide-ranging statistic-driven assessment, affected the trajectory of symptom improvement in patients at a large outpatient center.Methods:In this retrospective, pretest-postest non-equivalent study, all patients who initiated treatment at Rochester Center for Behavioral Medicine completed an intake appointment before being assigned to take MindMetrix (n = 97) or commencing treatment without additional assessment (n = 50). Before every visit, patients took a pre-visit survey, which included the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9 Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) scale-2, and the ADHD Symptom and Side Effect Tracking Scale (ASSET). To determine whether MindMetrix adjusted symptom improvement over time, moderation analyses with time in treatment, MindMetrix assignment, and an interaction term examined the interactive effect on PHQ-9, GAD-2, or ASSET scale scores. This analysis included all patient visits after they began treatment at RCBM.Results: The moderation analyses found improvements in PHQ-9, GAD-2, and ASSET scales as patients proceeded through treatment, independently of their MindMetrix assignment. On the PHQ-9 and ASSET, MindMetrix significantly adjusted the effect of time in treatment, suggesting accelerated improvement.Conclusions:Results suggest that MindMetrix is an effective tool that can be used to guide early clinical decisions. Improvements seen in patients who took the MindMetrix assessment support its clinical benefit and potential for broad application in behavioral health and primary care centers.