Reducing Readmission of Hospitalized Patients With Depressive Symptoms: A Randomized Trial

Those who struggle with depression often have difficulty performing everyday tasks and
experience increased symptom burden. As such, as highlighted in Mitchell’s study, it is
important to treat comorbid depression because of the associated physical and psychosocial
health benefits which ultimately helps to lower hospital readmissions. Overall, compared to the
control group (RED), patients randomly assigned to the RED-D protocol had fewer readmissions
at 30 (receiving ≥ 3 sessions) and 90 (receiving ≥ 6 sessions) days post-discharge.

The study flow chart clearly outlined patient eligibility and inclusion and exclusion criteria.
However, it appears as though a significant number of patients needing additional follow-up
care were not eligible for the study. Moving forward, we wonder what strategies can be
implemented to successfully identify those at greatest risk (e.g., incarcerated) of readmission
due to depression. An additional finding that stood out to us was the average age of study
participants. In both groups, patients were approximately 50 year of age (50.3 years=RED-D
and 50.9 years=RED). We are curious as to whether the research team feels as though the
intervention would be as effective in younger patients as well. Thank you for conducting this
study and we hope to learn more about your work in the future.