Elomia - Digital Mental Health and Well-Being

University of Pennsylvania

Status: Invitation-only

Conditions: Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety; Perceived Stress

Treatments: Behavioral: Penn Digital Wellness Resources; Behavioral: AI enabled wellness chatbot

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06725147

857217

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is testing the acceptability and efficacy of an AI enabled mental health chatbot (Elomia) as a resource of college student wellness.

Full description

Elomia is a generative AI program that can respond to text users type in with unique responses that are designed to address therapeutic targets like stress, anxiety, procrastination, feeling overwhelmed and so on. Elomia was "trained" by real therapists with expertise in cognitive-behavioral therapy who responded to many different real people typing about their concerns. Thus, Elomia can suggest a number of different evidence based therapeutic strategies and can help the user process negative feelings, think through problems, plan solutions, and trouble shoot things that might get in the way of implementing those strategies. Elomia's arsenal includes:

• exercises for calming;
• exercises for falling asleep;
• grounding techniques;
• exercises to reduce anxiety;
• breathing exercises;
• exercises to improve self-esteem. The algorithm determines the user's need for one or another type of help while communicating with the chatbot and suggests an exercise to ease their emotional state. Elomia is not a substitute for professional care, and will detect when a person needs something more than a chatbot and will suggest connecting with other resources. More information about Elomia can be found via this website: https://elomia.com/

The ultimate goal of this study is to explore whether a mental health chatbot is acceptable and can improve symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and promote general psychological well-being in college students. The investigators will compare Elomia to a curated collection of digital wellness resources that are typically provided to students at our University.

Enrollment: 60 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania.
• At least 18 years of age.

Exclusion criteria

* Severe depression or suicidality as indicated by Beck Depression Inventory score of >= 30, and/or a score of 2 or 3 on the Item (the suicide item) of the Beck Depression Inventory

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Crossover Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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60 participants in 2 patient groups

Elomia - Digital Mental Health Chatbot

Experimental group

Description:

Participants randomized to Elomia will be expected to use the intervention at least once per week (for around 30 minutes) but are encouraged to use as needed/wanted. Elomia is a generative AI program that can respond to text the user types in with unique responses that are designed to address therapeutic targets like stress, anxiety, procrastination, feeling overwhelmed and so on. Elomia was "trained" by real therapists with expertise in cognitive-behavioral therapy who responded to many different real people typing about their concerns. Thus, Elomia can suggest a number of different evidence based therapeutic strategies and can help the user process negative feelings, think through problems, plan solutions, and trouble shoot things that might get in the way of implementing those strategies.

Treatment:

Behavioral: AI enabled wellness chatbot

Penn Wellness Modules

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants randomized to the control condition will be expected to use the intervention at least once per week (for around 30 minutes) but are encouraged to use as needed/wanted. The control condition consists of a curated collection of digital wellness resources that are already available freely to Penn students, including tips on getting good sleep, learning center material on time management and procrastination, and so on. The resources will be accessed via a single website, but there is no interactive component.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Penn Digital Wellness Resources