Chatbot for Depression, Anxiety, and Eating Disorders

Dartmouth Health

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Eating Disorders; Depression; Anxiety

Treatments: Other: Therabot

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06013137

STUDY02000591

Details and patient eligibility

About

The research team would like to test how efficacious an artificial intelligence chatbot is in delivering supportive behavioral interventions in populations with anxiety, depression, or eating concerns.

Full description

The research team has developed a deep learning-powered application that can provide support and therapeutic suggestions via natural dialogue. The chatbot is designed to be highly scalable such that it could address access issues (to address the majority of persons who do not not have access to therapy). Eventually, it is hoped this intervention can provide accessible therapy for those with anxiety, depression, and eating disorders, among other mental illnesses. The chatbot has been trained with intervention-oriented text conversations written by research assistants, employing a variety of therapeutic techniques, including cognitive-behavioral therapy. The research team hopes to test how well the chatbot can respond and aid those with mental health symptoms. The chatbot's effectiveness will be monitored based on the participants' interactions with the chatbot, as well as the participants' scores on the PHQ-9, GAD-IV, SWED, and general satisfactory questionnaires.

Enrollment: 210 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• We will recruit participants online using Facebook, Google Ads, Reddit, MTurk, listservs, and other online platforms.
• These individuals must meet the criteria for anxiety, depression or disordered eating, according to the PHQ-9, GADQ-IV, and SWED 3.0.

Exclusion criteria

• Individuals currently being treated for active suicidality (measured with C-SSRS), Bipolar I/II, and active psychosis will be excluded from the study.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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210 participants in 2 patient groups

Experimental

Experimental group

Description:

This group will have access to the Therabot smartphone application. They will interact with the generative chatbot daily to discuss their mental health. Each participant in this group will have some benchmark symptoms of depression, anxiety, or eating disorders. They will fill out questionnaires every 4 weeks to describe changes in symptoms.

Treatment:

Other: Therabot

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

This group will not have access to the Therabot App. They will fill out questionnaires every 4 weeks to describe changes in symptoms. Each participant in this group will have some benchmark symptoms of depression, anxiety, or eating disorders.