Digital Mental Health Service for Non-Treatment Seeking Young Adults

Summary

This is a feasibility trial of a personalized 8-week text messaging intervention aimed at young adults (ages 18-25) with depression and anxiety who are not interested in -- or experience barriers to -- receiving traditional face-to-face psychological treatments.

The trial will consist of a pilot test of (1) an 8-week adaptive (personalized) messaging intervention relative to (2) a non-personalized digital mental health intervention, or (3) an active control which will send weekly psychoeducation information by way of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). The adaptive intervention will uses machine learning to tailor Short Message Service (SMS) messages to an individual's needs and preferences, and URL links to provide access to psychoeducational content to contextualize messages, when the length of that content exceeds the limitations of messages.

The primary goals of the project are to conduct a feasibility trial using a sequential multiple assignment randomized treatment (SMART) design, which will evaluate (a) the effectiveness of an adaptive, personalized messaging intervention in reducing engagement relative to a non-personalized version; and (b) whether human coaching results in greater symptom reduction and engagement, relative an unguided implementation.

Conditions

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Suicidal Ideation

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Adaptive messaging intervention

Psychological content and messages delivered regularly over an 8-week period via interactive SMS messages. Content and messages will be tailored using machine learning.

BEHAVIORAL

Non-personalized messaging intervention

Psychological content and messages delivered regularly over an 8-week period via interactive SMS messages. Psychological content will center on a single psychological strategy each week. There will not be any tailoring of messaging and content based on group or individual level data.

BEHAVIORAL

Coaching

Human coaching to support intervention use and engagement via telephone calls, text or email

BEHAVIORAL

Psychoeducational links

SMS messages with URLs containing brief psychoeducational information.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Northwestern University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• David C Mohr, PhD · Northwestern University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

SEQUENTIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

25 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-10-27

Primary Completion

2024-10-23

Completion

2024-10-25

Countries

• United States

Study Locations