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Evaluation of a Digital Pre-therapy Patient Education Program (StartHjelp) in Outpatient Mental Health Care

S

St. Olavs Hospital

Status

Enrolling

Conditions

Mental Disorder
Mental Health Issue
Patient Education

Treatments

Behavioral: Comparator intervention
Behavioral: Digital pre-therapy patient education program (StartHjelp)

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT06212687
635362 b

Details and patient eligibility

About

Community mental health centers (CMHCs) face significant challenges in meeting the needs of individuals with mental health issues. For example, due to high demand, there are long waiting lists and low engagement rates. Innovative interventions are urgently needed to address these challenges to improve patient engagement, coping skills, and overall health outcomes. Educational and self-management interventions have shown promise in enhancing patient activation and treatment satisfaction in other contexts. They may therefore be potential solutions to reduce the identified challenges in the mental health service. To bridge these knowledge and practice gaps, this study aims to evaluate a digital pre-therapy patient education program tailored specifically for adults with mental disorders. This intervention aims to enhance treatment satisfaction, patient activation, knowledge, patient engagement, and overall mental health outcomes.

Full description

Community mental health centers (CMHCs) play a pivotal role in the provision of comprehensive care and support for individuals with mental health challenges. However, these centers often face formidable obstacles, including surging patient demands, lengthy waiting lists, high dropout rates, and barriers to engagement, stigma, and negative attitudes. Given these challenges, there exists an urgent imperative to develop innovative interventions that can enhance treatment satisfaction, patient activation, knowledge, and patient engagement, and ultimately yield improved mental health outcomes. One promising approach for addressing these challenges lies in the realm of patient engagement and enablement strategies, particularly through the implementation of digital educational interventions.

The investigators hypothesize that utilizing innovative technology to deliver an early digital self-management educational program improves treatment satisfaction, patient activation, knowledge, patient engagement, and overall mental health outcomes without substantially increasing service costs. The impact of utilizing innovative technology to deliver an early digital pre-therapy patient education program through the HelsaMi web patient portal is promising. By leveraging technology, it is possible to reach a wider audience and provide accessible and convenient information, with the same standard to all patients. This approach has the potential to improve patient outcomes, increase treatment adherence, and reduce the burden on healthcare resources. By demonstrating the benefits of digital interventions, our research will pave the way for more efficient and cost-effective mental healthcare services, benefiting both patients and healthcare systems.

Enrollment

170 estimated patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 65 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

  • Put on the waiting list for mental health outpatient treatment in the active study period.
  • Willing to participate in the study
  • Over 18 years
  • Understand written and spoken Norwegian

Exclusion criteria

  • In need of acute help

Trial design

Primary purpose

Other

Allocation

Randomized

Interventional model

Parallel Assignment

Masking

None (Open label)

170 participants in 2 patient groups

Digital pre-therapy informational intervention (StartHjelp).
Experimental group
Description:
Patients gets access to StartHjelp, an app which gradually present treatment relevant information while the patient is on waiting list for mental health outpatient services.
Treatment:
Behavioral: Digital pre-therapy patient education program (StartHjelp)
Control group
Active Comparator group
Description:
The control group gets sent all the same information as the intervention group in written form, by mail.
Treatment:
Behavioral: Comparator intervention

Trial contacts and locations

1

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Central trial contact

Henrik Pedersen, Cand. Psych.; Mariela L. Lara-Cabrera, PhD

Data sourced from clinicaltrials.gov

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