A personal sensing technology enabled service versus a digital psychoeducation control for primary care patients with depression and anxiety: a pilot randomized controlled trial.

Background: Technology-enabled services (TES; clinical services that include both technology-driven [e.g., personal sensing technologies] and person-powered support elements) may address gaps in depression and anxiety treatments in healthcare settings.

Clinical Effects of Asynchronous Provider-Guided Practice Sessions During Blended Care Therapy for Anxiety and Depression: Pragmatic Retrospective Cohort Study.

Background: Blended care therapy models are intended to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of evidence-based psychotherapy by combining synchronous and asynchronous components of care.

Objective: This retrospective cohort study evaluated the clinical effects of synchronous video therapy sessions and asynchronous guided practice session elements on anxiety and depression in a blended care therapy program, with a novel focus on asynchronous provider feedback messages.

Methods: Participants were adults (N=33,492) with clinical symptoms of anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale [GAD-7] score of ≥8) and depression (Patient Health Questionnaire 9-item scale [PHQ-9] score of ≥10) at intake.

Acceptability and usability of a WeChat-based intervention for depression in China: A mixed-methods study.

Background: As research on the use of mobile technology to deliver mental health support grows, the research from China is still very limited. How to design an acceptable and usable mobile mental health service model suitable for China's social and cultural environment remains to be studied.

Objective: To understand the acceptability and usability of a WeChat-based intervention among Chinese patients with depression, and to provide insights to promote future development of user-centered mobile mental health services design.

The SoCAP (Social Communication, Affiliation, and Presence) Taxonomy of Social Features: Scoping Review of Commercially Available eHealth Apps.

Background: eHealth interventions have proven to be valuable resources for users with diverse mental and behavioral health concerns. As these technologies continue to proliferate, both academic researchers and commercial app creators are leveraging the use of features that foster a sense of social connection on these digital platforms. Yet, the literature often insufficiently represents the functionality of these key social features, resulting in a lack of understanding of how they are being implemented.

Voice Assistants for Mental Health Services: Designing Dialogues with Homebound Older Adults.

The number of older adults who are homebound with depressive symptoms is increasing. Due to their homebound status, they have limited access to trained mental healthcare support, which leaves this support often to untrained family caregivers. To increase access, a growing interest is placed on using technology-mediated solutions, such as voice-assisted intelligent personal assistants (VIPAs), to deliver mental health services to older adults.

Developing Social Enhancements for a Web-Based, Positive Emotion Intervention for Alzheimer Disease Caregivers: Qualitative Focus Group and Interview Study.

Background: Alzheimer disease is a degenerative neurological condition that requires long-term care. The cost of these responsibilities is often borne by informal caregivers, who experience an elevated risk of negative physical and psychological outcomes. Previously, we designed a positive emotion regulation intervention that was shown to improve well-being among dementia caregivers when delivered through one-on-one videoconferencing lessons with a trained facilitator.

"Our Job is to be so Temporary": Designing Digital Tools that Meet the Needs of Care Managers and their Patients with Mental Health Concerns.

Digital tools have potential to support collaborative management of mental health conditions, but we need to better understand how to integrate them in routine healthcare, particularly for patients with both physical and mental health needs. We therefore conducted interviews and design workshops with 1) a group of care managers who support patients with complex health needs, and 2) their patients whose health needs include mental health concerns. We investigate both groups' views of potential applications of digital tools within care management.

From formative design to service-ready therapeutic: A pragmatic approach to designing digital mental health interventions across domains.

As digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) proliferate, there is a growing need to understand the complexities of moving these tools from concept and design to service-ready products. We highlight five case studies from a center that specializes in the design and evaluation of digital mental health interventions to illustrate pragmatic approaches to the development of digital mental health interventions, and to make transparent some of the key decision points researchers encounter along the design-to-product pipeline. Case studies cover different key points in the design process and focus on partnership building, understanding the problem or opportunity, prototyping the product or service, and testing the product or service.

Acceptability and Feasibility of a Socially Enhanced, Self-Guided, Positive Emotion Regulation Intervention for Caregivers of Individuals With Dementia: Pilot Intervention Study.

Background: The responsibilities of being a primary caregiver for a loved one with dementia can produce significant stress for the caregiver, leading to deleterious outcomes for the caregiver's physical and psychological health. Hence, researchers are developing eHealth interventions to provide support for caregivers. Members of our research team previously developed and tested a positive emotion regulation intervention that we delivered through videoconferencing, in which caregiver participants would meet one-on-one with a trained facilitator.

Preparing a Workforce of Care Coordinators to Address Patient Mental Health Needs in the Digital Age: Training and Needs Identification.

Introduction: Care coordinators (CCs) are specialized healthcare providers and often the primary point of contact for patients with multiple medical and mental health comorbidities in integrated healthcare settings. Prior work shows CCs have lower comfort addressing mental health than physical health concerns. Digital mental health interventions can support CCs' management of patient mental health needs, but training gaps must be addressed prior to a digital mental health intervention's implementation.

The Perceived Utility of Smartphone and Wearable Sensor Data in Digital Self-tracking Technologies for Mental Health.

Mental health symptoms are commonly discovered in primary care. Yet, these settings are not set up to provide psychological treatment. Digital interventions can play a crucial role in stepped care management of patients' symptoms where patients are offered a low intensity intervention, and treatment evolves to incorporate providers if needed.

Remote Cognitive Screening Of Healthy Older Adults for Primary Care With the MyCog Mobile App: Iterative Design and Usability Evaluation.

Background: Annual cognitive screening in adults aged >65 years can improve early detection of cognitive impairment, yet less than half of all cases are identified in primary care. Time constraints in primary care settings present a major barrier to routine screening. A remote cognitive screener completed on a patient's own smartphone before a visit has the potential to save primary care clinics time, encourage broader screening practices, and increase early detection of cognitive decline.

Insights Into Needs and Preferences for Mental Health Support on Social Media and Through Mobile Apps Among Black Male University Students: Exploratory Qualitative Study.

Background: Black college-aged men are less likely than their peers to use formal, therapeutic in-person services for mental health concerns. As the use of mobile technologies and social media platforms is steadily increasing, it is important to conduct work that examines the future utility of digital tools and technologies to improve access to and uptake of mental health services for Black men and Black men in college.

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify and understand college-attending Black men's needs and preferences for using digital health technologies and social media for stress and mental health symptom management.

Examining Hashtag Use of #blackboyjoy and #theblackmancan and Related Content on Instagram: Descriptive Content Analysis.

Background: Social media is widely accessible and increasingly utilized. Social media users develop hashtags and visual, text-based imagery to challenge misrepresentations, garner social support, and discuss a variety of mental health issues. Understanding how Black men are represented on social media and are using social media may be an avenue for promoting their engagement with and uptake of digital mental health interventions.

Involving Crowdworkers with Lived Experience in Content-Development for Push-Based Digital Mental Health Tools: Lessons Learned from Crowdsourcing Mental Health Messages.

Digital tools can support individuals managing mental health concerns, but delivering sufficiently engaging content is challenging. This paper seeks to clarify how individuals with mental health concerns can contribute content to improve push-based mental health messaging tools. We recruited crowdworkers with mental health symptoms to evaluate and revise expert-composed content for an automated messaging tool, and to generate new topics and messages.

Remote-delivered services during COVID-19: A mixed-methods survey of college counseling center clinicians.

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically increased use of remote-delivered mental health services. This study identifies advantages and limitations of remote-delivered services on college campuses to inform mental health delivery post-pandemic. Clinicians ( = 30) were asked to evaluate COVID-19's impact on their work, environment, and wellness in an online survey.

An overview of and recommendations for more accessible digital mental health services.

Mental health concerns are common, and various evidence-based interventions for mental health conditions have been developed. However, many people have difficulty accessing appropriate mental health care and this has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital mental health services, such as those delivered by mobile phone or web-based platforms, offer the possibility of expanding the reach and accessibility of mental health care.

Uptake and effectiveness of a self-guided mobile app platform for college student mental health.

Background: College students endorse high rates of mental health problems. While many colleges offer on-campus services, many students who could benefit from mental health services do not receive care. Indeed, nearly half of students who screen positive for depression, for example, do not receive treatment.

Accessibility of mental health support in China and preferences on web-based services for mood disorders: A qualitative study.

Background: The fast development of mobile technologies provides promising opportunities to fulfill the largely unmet needs of treatment and recovery for mood disorders in China. However, with limited research from China, the development of acceptable and usable web-based mental health services that are based on preference of patients from China still remains a challenge.

Objective: The aims of this paper were to (1) understand the experience of patients with mood disorders on current accessibility of mental health support in China; and (2) to get insights on patients' preferences on web-based mental health services, so as to provide suggestions for the future development of web-based mental health services for mood disorders in China.

The effect of depression and anxiety symptom severity on clinical outcomes and app use in digital mental health treatments: Meta-regression of three trials.

A large number of trials have consistently shown that guided digital mental health treatments (DMHTs) are effective for depression and anxiety. As DMHTs are adopted by healthcare organizations, payers, and employers, they are often considered most appropriate for people with mild-to-moderate levels of symptom severity. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine the effects of symptom severity on depression and anxiety outcomes and app use across three trials of a guided DMHT, IntelliCare.

Integration of Digital Tools Into Community Mental Health Care Settings That Serve Young People: Focus Group Study.

Background: Digital mental health tools have substantial potential to be easily integrated into people's lives and fundamentally impact public health. Such tools can extend the reach and maximize the impact of mental health interventions. Before implementing digital tools in new settings, it is critical to understand what is important to organizations and individuals who will implement and use these tools.

Targeting subjective engagement in experimental therapeutics for digital mental health interventions.

Engagement is a multifaceted construct and a likely mechanism by which digital interventions achieve clinical improvements. To date, clinical research on digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) has overwhelmingly defined engagement and assessed its association with clinical outcomes through the objective/behavioral metrics of use of or interactions with a DMHI, such as number of log-ins or time spent using the technology. However, engagement also entails users' subjective experience.

Care Managers and Role Ambiguity: The Challenges of Supporting the Mental Health Needs of Patients with Chronic Conditions.

As U.S. healthcare organizations transition to value-based healthcare, they are increasingly focusing on supporting patients who have difficulties managing chronic care, including mental health, through the growing role of care managers (CMs).

Systematic review of digital and non-digital non-pharmacological interventions that target quality of life and psychological outcomes in adults with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Background: Patients with systemic lupus erythematous (SLE) experience psychological comorbidities and impaired quality of life (QOL). We conducted a systematic review to examine the efficacy of non-pharmacological interventions for improving psychological outcomes and/or QOL in patients with SLE. To expand on a previous systematic review in this area and enhance our understanding of efficacious interventions for this population, our search included quasi-experimental and experimental studies of interventions delivered or supported by remote methods (including digitally) or in person.