Effectiveness of a Mobile Texting Intervention for People With Serious Mental Illness

Testing an mHealth mobile interventionist texting program on illness management.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Schizophrenia; Schizoaffective Disorder; Bipolar Disorder; Major Depressive Disorder
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Mobile Interventionist

Detailed Description

The ultimate objective is to evaluate a validated mHealth intervention that can be realistically integrated into community mental health settings to increase the availability, reach, and broad impact of illness management approaches for people with serious mental illness (SMI).

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 49
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Illinois
    • Chicago, Illinois, United States, 60290
      • Thresholds
  • Washington
    • Spokane, Washington, United States, 99207
      • Frontier Behavioral Health

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 99 years (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Chart diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, or major depressive disorder;
2. 18 years or older;
3. A rating of "3" or higher on one of three Patient Activation items;
4. Ownership of a mobile phone with call/text plan (research staff will offer assistance in accessing the Federal Lifeline Assistance Program to people who do not have a mobile phone and/or call/text plan if they are otherwise eligible);
5. Receiving community based treatment services.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Hearing, vision, or motor impairment that make it impossible to operate a mobile phone (determined using the individual's device for screening);
2. English reading level below 4th grade (determined using the reading section from the Wide Range Achievement Test - 4th Edition (WRAT-4).

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: SINGLE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
NO_INTERVENTION: Treatment as Usual; Treatment as usual for 3 months.
EXPERIMENTAL: Mobile Interventionist; Participants will exchange text messages with a mobile interventionist throughout the day for 3 months.	Other: Mobile Interventionist; A mobile interventionist is a trained clinician who provides supportive messaging through text messages via mobile devices (i.e. basic / smartphones)

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Psychiatric Symptoms	Assessed with the Psychotic Symptom Rating Scales (PSYRATS). The PSYRATS inquires about the specific dimensions of hallucinations and delusions. There are 17 items and each item is rated from 0 (absent) to 4 (severe). The PSYRATS has 2 subscales: the auditory hallucinations subscale (AHS) consisting of 11 items, and the delusions subscale (DS) consisting of 6 items. These subscale scores are added to create a total score ranging from 0-68. Higher scores indicate worse symptoms.	Change from baseline to 3 months and 6 months
Psychiatric Symptoms	Assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The Beck Depression Inventory is a psychometric test for measuring the severity of depression. There are 21 items, each rated from 0-3, and total scores range from 0-63. Higher scores indicate more severe depressive symptoms.	Change from baseline to 3 months and 6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Recovery	Assessed with the Recovery Assessment Scale (RAS). This scale measures mental health recovery. There are 24 items, each rated from 1 (disagree) to 5 (agree), and total scores range from 24-120. Higher scores indicate better recovery.	Change from baseline to 3 months and 6 months

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Satisfaction With Treatment	Assessed with satisfaction items established from previous SMI research. This measure consists of 5 items, each rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), and total scores range from 5-35. Higher scores indicate more satisfaction with treatment.	3 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Washington

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): October 1, 2017
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): May 31, 2020
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): May 31, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 9, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 20, 2017
• First Posted (ACTUAL): February 23, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): November 9, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 15, 2020
• Last Verified: October 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: mobile health; mhealth; mobile mental health; texting intervention
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Pathologic Processes; Mood Disorders; Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders; Bipolar and Related Disorders; Depressive Disorder; Schizophrenia; Disease; Psychotic Disorders; Mental Disorders; Bipolar Disorder; Depressive Disorder, Major
• Other Study ID Numbers: STUDY00001274

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No