This study proposes to develop and examine a personalized, text-based intervention designed to improve engagement with mental health (MH) treatment.
Text2Connect (T2C) aims to increase perceived susceptibility/severity of depression/suicidality and decrease stigma in at-risk adolescents and their parents. The investigators hypothesize that modification of patient beliefs leads to change talk, thereby increasing the experience of discrepancy which affects motivation for change. These experiences in turn influence decisional balance away from ambivalence toward readiness for change. Assignment of Interventions: This study utilized an open trial design. A stepped wedge design was originally proposed and efforts were made to adhere to this study design, however after a year of low recruitment and resultant recruitment sites pulling out the of the study, the overall study design was changed to an open trial. Additional recruitment sites were onboarded to the study and provided with the intervention arm in order to obtain feasibility data on the intervention components of the study. As a result of the change, there are some TAU participants included in this study. For reference a stepped wedge design involves the sequential random rollout of an intervention over two time periods. Following a baseline period in which no clusters (=practices) are exposed to the intervention, the crossover is typically in one direction, from control to intervention and continues until both of the clusters have crossed-over to receive the intervention, with observations taken from each cluster and at each time period. This study will pilot Text2Connect in community pediatric and mental health practices using a stepped wedge design (n = 50 adolescents). Hypothesis: Readiness for mental health care will be greater among adolescents in T2C vs adolescents referred during TAU.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NA
Purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
47
Text2Connect is a personalized text messaging intervention for patients and parents that targets self-identified barriers to engaging in treatment to increase the likelihood that a depressed or suicidal patient will initiate recommended services.
CCP Waterdam
McMurray, Pennsylvania, United States
Children's Community Pediatrics (CCP-Natrona Heights) of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC
Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, United States
Children's Community Pediatrics (CCP-GIL) of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
STAR-Center
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Attendance to Treatment
Attendance to the embedded mental health care appointments will be assessed via electronic health record (EHR), as the primary outcome of Text2Connect (T2C)
Time frame: Week 4 follow up after Baseline
Attendance to Treatment
Attendance to the embedded mental health care appointments will be assessed via electronic health record (EHR), as the primary outcome of Text2Connect (T2C)
Time frame: Week 12 follow up after Baseline
Number of SMS Messages Answered by Participants
Use of the technical components of T2C will be monitored. Utilization will be measured by the number of participant responses to the automatic T2C SMS messages at the baseline timepoint.
Time frame: At Baseline phone visit
Number of SMS Messages Answered by Participants
Use of the technical components of T2C will be monitored. Utilization will be measured by the number of participant responses to the automatic T2C SMS messages at the 4 week follow-up timepoint.
Time frame: Week 4 follow up after Baseline
Number of SMS Messages Answered by Participants
Use of the technical components of T2C will be monitored. Utilization will be measured by the number of participant responses to the automatic T2C SMS messages at the 12 week follow-up timepoint.
Time frame: Week 12 follow up after Baseline
Service Utilization-Baseline
The Child and Adolescent Service Assessment (CASA) will collect service utilization of all participants to determine the amount of services accessed in each treatment arm. An overall average of the cost of implementing the Text2Connect intervention (including labor, equipment, supplies, facilitates) can be estimated and between the intervention costs and cost of services used from CASA, a comparison will be made and results published. The CASA response data displayed are those who responded positively that they received the service.
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Time frame: At Baseline phone visit
Service Utilization-Follow Up 4 Weeks
The Child and Adolescent Service Assessment (CASA) will collect service utilization of all participants to determine the amount of services accessed in each treatment arm. An overall average of the cost of implementing the Text2Connect intervention (including labor, equipment, supplies, facilitates) can be estimated and between the intervention costs and cost of services used from CASA, a comparison will be made and results published. The CASA response data displayed are those who responded positively that they received the service.
Time frame: Week 4 follow up after Baseline
Service Utilization-Follow up 12 Weeks
The Child and Adolescent Service Assessment (CASA) will collect service utilization of all participants to determine the amount of services accessed in each treatment arm. An overall average of the cost of implementing the Text2Connect intervention (including labor, equipment, supplies, facilitates) can be estimated and between the intervention costs and cost of services used from CASA, a comparison will be made and results published. The CASA response data displayed are those who responded positively that they received the service.
Time frame: Week 12 follow up after Baseline
Usability & Satisfaction
Satisfaction to T2C will be assessed through questions developed by investigators to understand experience with the program. The question investigators have adapted from literature reviews on satisfaction is: "If a friend were in need of a mental health referral, would you recommend Text2Connect to him/her?" The response options include: No, definitely not; No, I don't think so; Yes, I think so; Yes, definitely.
Time frame: At exit interview either following week 4 study visit or week 12 study visit (depending on when youth attend 1st mental health care appointment)
Usability & Satisfaction
Satisfaction with the technical components of interventions will be assessed through the certain questions from the Post System Satisfaction and Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ). The PSSUQ is 19 items with response options ranging from 1 to 7 where 1=strongly disagree and 7=strongly agree. The PSSUQ has sub-scores derived from subsets of the questions which reflect system usefulness, information quality, and interface quality. Questions from sub-domains were chosen to tailor the questioning to this particular intervention. Another question about the need to learn new things before using the app was asked to be rated on a 1-5 scale, with 1= strongly disagree and 5= strongly agree. Two other satisfaction questions included were: "How satisfied are you with the amount of help you received?" The response options were on a scale of 1 (Very dissatisfied) to 4 (Very satisfied). "Have the services you received helped you to deal more effectively with your problems?" The response options were
Time frame: At exit interview either following week 4 study visit or week 12 study visit (depending on when youth attend 1st mental health care appointment)