Remotely-Delivered CBT for English-Speaking Psychiatric Outpatients across Quebec: An Evaluation of Treatment Effectiveness, Treatment Acceptability and Barriers to Accessing Care

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is the ‘gold standard’ psychological intervention for most mental health problems, however, access to CBT is often challenging due to long clinic waitlists and limited availability of trained professionals in all communities. In Quebec, English-speaking Quebecers are faced with additional challenges in accessing care due to their status as a linguistic minority. One method of increasing access to CBT is using a model of remote service delivery whereby clinics that specialize in CBT can provide services in English to patients located anywhere in the province. Using a non-randomized design, we aim to examine whether providing remotely-delivered CBT to English-speaking Quebecers from across the province will lead to similar improvements in symptoms and functioning compared to patients receiving in-person treatment. We will also examine questionnaire results and identify themes in patients’ written feedback to assess their treatment satisfaction and to better understand their experiences of receiving remotely-delivered CBT. This study will be conducted in the Centre for CBT Research, Training and Intervention (Centre for CBT-RTI), a clinic located in the McGill University Health Centre. The Centre for CBT-RTI is a non-sectorized clinic staffed by bilingual mental health professionals with expertise in CBT who provide in person and remotely-delivered CBT for patients from across Quebec. The findings from this research are anticipated to increase awareness among mental health professionals and key stakeholders in government and hospital administration about the benefits of remote-delivered CBT and patient preferences for service-delivery.

Outputs:

• Project completion: Data collection and analysis finalized. Results shared with mental health professionals locally at McGill University and the McGill University Health Centre, and nationally through the Canadian Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies. An additional submission was made to the Douglas Research Centre / McGill Psychiatry Research Day.

• Conference presentations:

  • April 2025 – Poster at the 3rd Annual MUHC Mental Health Mission Research Day (Montréal).

  • May 2025 – Poster at the Canadian Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies 15th Annual Conference (Banff).

  • Submitted – Poster to the Annual Research Day of the Douglas Research Centre and McGill Department of Psychiatry.

• Student training and outputs: MSc student is preparing a master’s thesis (submission planned August 2025), including a manuscript to be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal in Fall 2025.