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SUMMIT

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Scaling Up Maternal Mental healthcare by Increasing access to Treatment
 

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The Aim of the Project:


SUMMIT aims to increase access to mental health care for pregnant women and new mothers.

The project is led by Dr. Daisy Radha Singla (Study & Site PI, University of Toronto), Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody (Co-PI & Site PI, University of North Carolina), Richard Silver (Site PI), Cindy-Lee Dennis (University of Toronto, Site PI), Dr. Vikram Patel (Co-I, Harvard Medical School), and Dr. John Naslund (Co-I, Harvard Medical School).

The Background:

Depression and anxiety symptoms pose a significant burden and lead to high costs among mothers worldwide. Psychological treatments — also known as talk therapies, including behavioral, cognitive and interpersonal therapies — have a robust evidence base and are preferred by women and their families over pharmacological treatments.

Unfortunately, as few as one in five women can access these effective treatments due to a dearth of available specialists and barriers including cost, transportation, and access. There is therefore a need for widely accessible, low-cost, and innovative psychological treatments for depression and anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum.

The Project Plan:

 

Non-specialists including nurses, peers, and lay counselors trained to deliver brief treatments such as behavioral activation have shown to be as effective as specialists in reducing perinatal depressive and anxiety symptoms. In addition, delivering talk therapies using telemedicine has been proven to be as effective as in-person treatments. SUMMIT's project plan is focused on studying the intersection of these variables.

 


 

Through a randomized controlled trial, the project team seeks to determine how to optimize limited resources, in addition to:

  • Testing whether non-specialist providers — in this case, nurses — can deliver BA as effectively as specialist psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers.
  • Testing whether telemedicine is as effective as in-person treatment.
  • Studying relevant barriers and facilitators related to the program delivery, long-term sustainability, and determining for whom these strategies work best.

 

Supporters and Project Duration:
 

The SHARP initiative is generously supported by Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The study will take place over the course of five years (2020 - 2024) across Toronto, Ontario; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and Chicago, Illinois — cities with large, ethnically diverse, urban and rural populations.

Examining these innovative strategies within real-world settings will allow the researchers to inform existing healthcare services and potentially increase access to talk therapies. In doing so, more mothers and their children may benefit from access to effective treatments and suffer less from the longstanding impact of depression and anxiety.

To read more about the project visit: The Summit Trial