Development of Virtual Mental Health Stepped Care Service for a Heart Failure Remote Management Program: Qualitative Descriptive Study

Depression is highly prevalent yet undertreated among people living with heart failure, indicating barriers to mental health services. Although various digital mental health interventions have been developed to detect, treat, and manage depression in this population, these interventions have seen limited integration into clinical care and a lack of implementation research. Stepped care is a service innovation that may promote the implementation of these technologies into clinical settings, but few studies have examined how these services are designed in clinical settings.