Computer-based system for providing psychological therapy

Abstract

A computer-implemented method may comprise obtaining text from text-based instant messages sent between a patient and a therapist providing psychological therapy to treat a depression and/or anxiety disorder, wherein the patient is remotely situated relative to the therapist during sending of the text-based instant messages; determining at least one feature of the text by, at least, applying a text mining/analytics process to the text from the text-based instant messages; converting the at least one feature into a characteristic of the patient and/or the therapist, wherein the characteristic relates to a predicted outcome of therapy, a risky behavior by the patient, predicted drop-out by the patient, and/or a performance of the therapist; and transmitting the characteristic to the therapist and/or a supervisor of the therapist.

1 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
 obtaining text from text-based instant messages sent between a patient and a therapist providing psychological therapy to treat a depression and/or anxiety disorder, wherein the patient is remotely situated relative to the therapist during sending of the text-based instant messages;   determining at least one feature of the text by, at least, applying a text mining/analytics process to the text from the text-based instant messages;   converting the at least one feature into a characteristic of the patient and/or the therapist, wherein the characteristic relates to a predicted outcome of therapy, a risky behavior by the patient, predicted drop-out by the patient, and/or a performance of the therapist; and   transmitting the characteristic to the therapist and/or a supervisor of the therapist.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the text mining/analytics process comprises one or more of: information retrieval or identification of a corpus; natural language processing speech tagging; syntactic parsing; linguistic analysis; named entity recognition; disambiguation; recognition of pattern identified entities; coreference; relationship, fact, and event extraction; sentiment analysis; and quantitative text analysis. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the text is a transcript of the text-based instant messages; wherein the method further comprises adding the transcript to a database; and wherein steps of the determining of the at least one feature, the converting of the at least one feature, and the transmitting of the characteristic occurs automatically after detecting the adding of the transcript to the database. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 adding a new non-instant message to a database that contains non-instant messages and a transcript of the text-based instant messages; wherein the method further comprises adding the transcript to a database; and wherein steps of the determining of the at least one feature, the converting of the at least one feature, and the transmitting of the characteristic occurs automatically after detecting the adding of the new non-instant message to the database. 
 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the determining of the at least one feature of the text also includes considering data relating to the patient, a PHQ-9 score of the patient, and/or a GAD-7 score of the patient. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 assigning, by the therapist, a task to the patient based on the characteristic; and 
 transmitting the task to the patient. 
 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the task comprises completion of one or more of: a thought record, a formulation sheet, a behavioural experiment record sheet, a behavioural experiment record sheet, a recording of mindfulness activities, an activity diary, a behavioural activation record, an activity schedule, a psycho-education, graded hierarcy of fears, a record of exposure, a therapy blueprint, a survey, or a responsibility pie chart. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 6  further comprising:
 transmitting an alert to the therapist when the task is completed by the patient. 
 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the task is completion of a PHQ-9 and/or GAD-7 questionnaire; and wherein the method further comprises:
 transmitting an alert to the therapist when a score for the PHQ-9 and/or GAD-7 questionnaire is above a threshold.   
     
     
         10 . A system comprising:
 an access system configured to control user access to as defined by a role type, wherein the role types comprise patient roles, therapist roles, and administrator roles;   a therapy system configured to enable text-based instant messages sent between a patient and a therapist providing psychological therapy to treat a depression and/or anxiety disorder, wherein the patient is remotely situated relative to the therapist during sending of the text-based instant messages, wherein the patient and the therapist are each associated with a case record;   a text analysis system coupled to the therapy system to receive text of the text-based instant messages from the therapy system, the text analysis system also configured to:
 determine at least one feature of the text by, at least, applying a text mining/analytics process to the text from the text-based instant messages; and 
 convert the at least one feature into a characteristic of the patient and/or the therapist, wherein the characteristic relates to a predicted outcome of therapy, a risky behavior by the patient, predicted drop-out by the patient, and/or a performance of the therapist; and 
   an alerting system configured to receive the characteristic from the text analysis system and transmit the characteristic to the therapist and/or a supervisor of the therapist.   
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the text mining/analytics process comprises one or more of: information retrieval or identification of a corpus; natural language processing speech tagging; syntactic parsing; linguistic analysis; named entity recognition;
 disambiguation; recognition of pattern identified entities; coreference; relationship, fact, and event extraction; sentiment analysis; and quantitative text analysis.   
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the text is a transcript of the text-based instant messages in a database of the system; and wherein the text analysis system is configured to automatically initiate the determine of the at least one feature, the convert of the at least one feature, and send the characteristic to the alerting system automatically after addition of the transcript to the database. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 10  further comprising:
 a messaging system configured to enable non-instant messages between the patient and the therapist and configured to transmit the non-instant message to a database that contains non-instant messages and a transcript of the text-based instant messages. 
 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the determine of the at least one feature of the text also includes consideration of data relating to the patient, a PHQ-9 score of the patient, and/or a GAD-7 score of the patient. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 10  further comprising:
 a task system configured allow therapist to set task and patients to complete tasks; and 
 wherein the altering system is further configured to alert the patient when the therapist sets a task. 
 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 15 , wherein the task comprises completion of one or more of: a thought record, a formulation sheet, a behavioural experiment record sheet, a behavioural experiment record sheet, a recording of mindfulness activities, an activity diary, a behavioural activation record, an activity schedule, a psycho-education, graded hierarcy of fears, a record of exposure, a therapy blueprint, a survey, or a responsibility pie chart. 
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 15  wherein the altering system is further configured to alert to the therapist when the task is completed by the patient. 
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 15 , wherein the task is completion of a PHQ-9 and/or GAD-7 questionnaire; and wherein the altering system is further configured to alert to the therapist when a score for the PHQ-9 and/or GAD-7 questionnaire is above a threshold.