Telehealth Intervention Program for Older Adults (TIP-OA): Predictors of treatment response

Prior to COVID-19, psychiatric disorders affected over 10;15% of older adults (1,000,000 Canadians aged 60+) costing $15 billion/year. The pandemic has increased social isolation and limited resources. We developed an innovative volunteer-based Telehealth Intervention Program for Older Adults (TIP-OA), to improve mental health in older adults. Volunteers provide weekly phone calls to older adults (have served 700+ older adults). There is limited data about volunteer-based phoning programs' real-world effectiveness and predictors of response. To help maximize the programs benefits, and identify individuals needing more support this study aims to identify predictors of treatment response based on participant baseline risk ratings (green: low risk, orange: medium risk, red: high risk) and demographic characteristics. Our primary aim is to identify whether baseline risk level is associated with improved mental health outcomes at 8-week follow-up for stress, depression, anxiety, and COVID fear. Our secondary aim is to identify whether baseline demographic characteristics (age, gender, neighbourhood, etc.) are associated with improvement in mental health outcomes. We anticipate that TIP-OA will be beneficial for improving stress, depression and anxiety symptoms, and fear of COVID over 8-weeks in higher baseline risk level participants. If successful, our studys potential scientific findings will allow us to 1) further refine the intervention and focus future related interventions to patient populations who could benefit most, 2) be a stepping stone for other telehealth and digital health interventions for older adults, and 3) translate these findings to the application and further development of TIP-OA or related interventions on a larger scale.