JoyPop Mobile Mental Health App with Indigenous Youth

Lakehead University

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Emotion Regulation; Depression; Anxiety; Stress

Treatments: Behavioral: Usual Practice + JoyPop

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05898516

100157

Details and patient eligibility

About

Indigenous youth in Northwestern Ontario who need mental health supports experience longer waits than non-Indigenous youth within the region and when compared to youth in other more urban areas. Limited access and extended waits can exacerbate symptoms, prolong distress, and increase risk for more serious outcomes. Novel, innovative approaches are urgently needed to provide support for Indigenous youth in Northwestern Ontario. In partnership with Dilico Anishinabek Family Care, the investigators are evaluating the impact of a mental health app (JoyPop) as a tool for Indigenous youth who are waiting for mental health services. The JoyPop app was developed to support improved emotion regulation - a key difficulty for youth presenting with mental health challenges. A two-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the app compared to usual practice while Indigenous youth are waiting for mental health services.

Full description

Indigenous youth in Northwestern Ontario who need mental health supports experience longer waits than non-Indigenous youth within the region and when compared to youth in other more urban areas. Limited access and extended waits can exacerbate symptoms, prolong distress, increase risk for more serious outcomes like suicide, self-harm, and hospitalization, and negatively impact engagement in treatment once it is offered. Novel, innovative approaches are urgently needed to provide support for Indigenous youth in Northwestern Ontario.

In partnership with Dilico Anishinabek Family Care, the investigators are evaluating the impact of a mental health app (JoyPop) as a tool for Indigenous youth who are waiting for mental health services. The JoyPop app was developed to support improved emotion regulation - a key difficulty for youth presenting with mental health challenges. Despite the promise of mobile mental health apps, significant gaps exist between the growing number of apps available in the public domain and empirical demonstration of the beneficial impacts of apps for users. Of the apps that address emotion regulation, most have not been evaluated, are narrow in scope, or have only been evaluated among non-diverse adult populations. The JoyPop app includes a broader focus, and this research is unique given its focus on rigorously evaluating the JoyPop app as a tool for treatment-seeking, Indigenous youth in Northwestern Ontario.

Using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design, the primary objective is to determine the effectiveness of the JoyPop app in improving emotion regulation among Indigenous youth (12-17) who are waiting for mental health services as compared to usual practice (UP; monitoring those on the wait-list). The secondary objectives are to: (1) Assess change in mental health difficulties and treatment readiness between youth in each condition to better understand the app's broader impact as a wait-list tool; (2) Conduct an economic analysis to determine whether receiving the app while waiting for mental health services reduces other health service use and associated costs; (3) Define the Minimal Clinically Important Difference (MCID) for the primary outcome measure; and (4) Assess youth perspective the quality of the JoyPop app.

Enrollment: 110 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 12 to 17 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Indigenous youth must be on the wait-list for mental health services at Dilico Anishinabek Family Care and be between 12-17 years old.
• Eligible youth will also need to be available to attend a virtual or in-person orientation session.
• In order to download the JoyPop app, participants will need access to an iOS device (e.g., iPhone, iPad). Refurbished iPhones containing just the JoyPop app will be provided to participants to use for the duration of the trial if they do not have access to their own.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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110 participants in 2 patient groups

Usual Practice + JoyPop

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will be monitored through the existing wait-list practices, which involve regular phone calls to check in and assess functioning, and will receive access to the JoyPop app for 4 weeks.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Usual Practice + JoyPop

Usual Practice

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants will be monitored through existing wait-list practices which involve regular phone calls to check in and assess functioning. After 4 weeks in the Usual Practice condition, participants will be offered access to the JoyPop app.