A feasibility trial of Power Up: A smartphone app to support patient activation and shared decision making for mental health in young people (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Digital tools have the potential to support patient activation and shared decision making in the face of increasing levels of mental health problems in young people. There is a need for feasibility trials of digital interventions to determine the usage and acceptability of interventions. In addition, there is a need to determine the ability to recruit and retain research participants to plan rigorous effectiveness trials and therefore, develop evidence-based recommendations for practice. OBJECTIVE To determine the feasibility of undertaking a cluster randomized control trial to test the effectiveness of a smartphone app, Power Up, co-designed with young people to support patient activation and shared decision making for mental health. METHODS Overall, 270 young people were screened for participation and 53% (N = 142) were recruited and completed baseline measures across eight specialist child mental health services (n = 62, mean (SD) age = 14.66 (1.99) years, 52% female) and two mainstream secondary schools (n = 80; mean (SD) age = 16.88 (0.68) years, 46% female). Young people received Power Up in addition to management as usual or received management as usual only. Post-trial interviews were conducted with 11 young people from the intervention arms (specialist services n = 6; schools n = 5). RESULTS Usage data showed that there were an estimated 50 (out of 64) users of Power Up in the intervention arms. Findings from the interviews indicated that young people found Power Up to be acceptable. Young people reported: 1) their motivation for use of Power Up, 2) the impact of use, and 3) barriers to use. Out of the 142 recruited participants, 45% (64/142) completed follow up measures, and the approaches to increase retention agreed by the steering group are discussed. CONCLUSIONS The findings of the present research indicate that the app is acceptable and it is feasible to examine the effectiveness of Power Up in a prospective cluster randomized control trial. CLINICALTRIAL ISRCTN: ISRCTN77194423, ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02552797

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A Feasibility Trial of Power Up: Smartphone App to Support Patient Activation and Shared Decision Making for Mental Health in Young People

JMIR mhealth and uhealth ◽

10.2196/11677 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (6) ◽

pp. e11677 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Julian Edbrooke-Childs ◽

Chloe Edridge ◽

Phoebe Averill ◽

Louise Delane ◽

Chris Hollis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Decision Making ◽

Young People ◽

Shared Decision Making ◽

Controlled Trial ◽

Patient Activation ◽

Smartphone App ◽

Shared Decision ◽

Randomized Controlled ◽

Cluster Randomized

Background Digital tools have the potential to support patient activation and shared decision making in the face of increasing levels of mental health problems in young people. There is a need for feasibility trials of digital interventions to determine the usage and acceptability of interventions. In addition, there is a need to determine the ability to recruit and retain research participants to plan rigorous effectiveness trials and, therefore, develop evidence-based recommendations for practice. Objective This study aimed to determine the feasibility of undertaking a cluster randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of a smartphone app, Power Up, co-designed with young people to support patient activation and shared decision making for mental health. Methods Overall, 270 young people were screened for participation and 52.5% (142/270) were recruited and completed baseline measures across 8 specialist child mental health services (n=62, mean age 14.66 (SD 1.99) year; 52% [32/62] female) and 2 mainstream secondary schools (n=80; mean age 16.88 [SD 0.68] years; 46% [37/80] female). Young people received Power Up in addition to management as usual or received management as usual only. Posttrial interviews were conducted with 11 young people from the intervention arms (specialist services n=6; schools n=5). Results Usage data showed that there were an estimated 50 (out of 64) users of Power Up in the intervention arms. Findings from the interviews indicated that young people found Power Up to be acceptable. Young people reported (1) their motivation for use of Power Up, (2) the impact of use, and (3) barriers to use. Out of the 142 recruited participants, 45.0% (64/142) completed follow-up measures, and the approaches to increase retention agreed by the steering group are discussed. Conclusions The findings of this study indicate that the app is acceptable, and it is feasible to examine the effectiveness of Power Up in a prospective cluster randomized controlled trial. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02552797; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02552797 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6td6MINP0)

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