Evaluating a telehealth single-session consultation service for clients on psychotherapy wait-lists.

Outpatient mental health clinics across the country are struggling to meet acute demand for mental health services, resulting in months-long waitlists for people seeking care.Providing evidencebased, single session interventions to treatment-seeking individuals while they are waiting for treatment may help address this crisis.One such intervention, the Single-Session Consultation (SSC), was found to be an effective, acceptable, and feasible low-intensity treatment option when delivered in person.The current study evaluates the telehealth delivered SSC during the COVID-19 pandemic to individuals waiting to access mental health care.Of the 147 people offered an SSC, 95 (64.63%) accepted the invitation, 74 (77.89%) scheduled with a clinician, and 65 (87.84%)attended the session, surpassing feasibility benchmarks.Participants saw pre-to-post intervention improvements in hopelessness (dz = .91,p < .001)and readiness for change (dz = -0.49,p < .001).At 2-weeks follow-up, anxiety symptoms reduced significantly (dz = .40,p = .04)but depression symptoms did not decrease significantly (dz = .21).Participants rated telehealth-SSC sessions as highly acceptable and developed a close therapeutic alliance (M = 6.13,SD = 0.76).The telehealth-SSC was acceptable, feasible, and effective in the short-term, suggesting its utility as a low-intensity, scalable interventions for people on waiting lists for outpatient mental health care. Clinicaltrials.gov pre