A Mobile Phone Self-Monitoring Tool to Increase Emotional Self-Awareness and Reduce Depression in Young People (mobiletype)

Murdoch Childrens Research Institute

Status: Completed

Conditions: Depression

Treatments: Device: Mobile Tracking Young People's Experiences (mobiletype)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00794222

RCH28113

Details and patient eligibility

About

The mobiletype program is a mental health assessment and monitoring tool that runs on mobile phones.

The program assesses the general mental health of young people in real-time and transmits this data to a website to be reviewed by their general practitioner (GP) in consultation with their patient. The website consists of individualised feedback reports for each participant, and graphical displays of the monitoring data. The primary aims of the current project are to examine: (1) whether the process of self-monitoring via the mobiletype program increases young people's awareness of their mood and reduces depressive symptoms and (2) whether emotional self-awareness mediates the relationship between self-monitoring and depressive symptoms.

Enrollment: 118 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 14 to 24 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Aged 14 - 24 years of age
• Proficient English
• Patients must be deemed to have an emotional/mental health concern by their GP or be screened to have at least a mild mental health problem (a score of 16 or above) on the K10 Symptom Scale

Exclusion criteria

• Severe psychiatric or medical condition that prevents the person from complying with either the requirements of informed consent or the study protocol.
• Young people referred to a mental health specialist by their GP will be excluded only if they obtain a specialist appointment during the mobiletype study period (2 - 4 weeks).

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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118 participants in 2 patient groups

Mood monitoring

Experimental group

Description:

The mobiletype monitoring intervention group will monitor their current activities, current mood, responses to negative mood, any recent stressors and coping strategies. Other activities monitored include eating patterns, exercise patterns, quantity and quality of sleep and alcohol and cannabis use.

Treatment:

Device: Mobile Tracking Young People's Experiences (mobiletype)

Comparison monitoring program

No Intervention group

Description:

The mobiletype monitoring comparison group will monitor their current activities, eating patterns, exercise patterns, quantity and quality of sleep and alcohol and cannabis use. This program excludes questions about mood, stress and coping strategies.