Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute received funding to model antidepressant responses using health-record data, aiming for more personalized treatment.
New modeling research
Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) reports that a new grant will support research using machine learning to study how people respond to antidepressant medications. The project’s goal is to develop a model that could use information in a person’s health record to help identify which medication might be the best fit for that individual.
According to KPWHRI, the work is intended to make depression treatment more personalized. The institute describes the project as modeling research, rather than a currently available patient tool.
Why researchers are studying this
KPWHRI says commonly used depression medications have similar overall effectiveness rates, but that responses can differ widely between individual patients. A medication that helps one person may not help another, according to the institute.
The source says clinicians do not have strong tools to predict in advance whether a particular medication will succeed for a specific patient. As a result, KPWHRI says, some people try multiple medication options before finding one that improves their symptoms, a process that can take months.
Data from health systems
KPWHRI says the National Institute of Mental Health grant provides $800,000 over 3 years for the research. The project will use machine-learning methods and resources from the Mental Health Research Network, a consortium of research centers across the country, according to the institute.
The study will include data from more than 250,000 patients receiving care across four large health systems, KPWHRI reports. Those systems include HealthPartners in Minnesota and Kaiser Permanente regions in Washington, Northern California, and Southern California.
According to KPWHRI, researchers plan to examine long-term information from a large and diverse group of people treated in real-world practice. The institute says the data can show multiple health-system encounters and people’s histories with different medications.
Questions about individual response
KPWHRI says researchers will work with patients, clinicians, and other health-system partners to shape the study around relevant questions. The institute notes that a challenge in personalizing depression treatment is separating factors that affect response to one specific medication from factors that may affect outcomes with any medication or whether someone receives treatment at all.
KPWHRI also says co-occurring conditions and demographic characteristics can affect the likelihood that a person’s depression symptoms improve.
What this means for Washington patients
This KPWHRI research aims to improve future understanding of antidepressant response; people seeking treatment locally can use the directory, which lists 97 published clinics in Washington, to find available options.
This is general information, not medical advice.
More Washington reporting on treatment updates.
This report is educational and is not medical advice. Coverage, availability and eligibility can change; verify details with the named source or your care team.