Periodic Reporting for period 1 - IMMERSE (The implementation of Digital Mobile Mental Health in clinical care pathways: Towards person-centered care in psychiatry)
Reporting period: 2021-04-01 to 2022-09-30
• Covered mental disorders The DMMH is applicable for a variety of mental health care disorders and in a variety of mental health care settings, with the clinical sites included in our randomised controlled trial covering different disorders and including both in- and out-patient settings.
• Effectiveness and usability There is a lack of rigorous testing of effectiveness and usability. IMMERSE has already done extensive usability testing before the start of the RCT in phase 2. Furthermore, we will conduct an RCT and test effectiveness and feasibility, while closely evaluating the implementation process in 4 countries in Europe.
• Interventions IMMERSE introduces a new model of behavioural change which deviates from traditional therapeutic approaches. Using the MoMent app and dashboard, both clinicians and service users will get feedback on personalized patterns of associations, thus providing a granular understanding of real-life processes, including their mental health problems and the context thereof. Furthermore, using the DMMH will restore the power-balance by empowering service users to come in the lead of their treatment process
• Technology Only a small proportion of apps uses passive sensor information and an even smaller number uses advanced statistics such as machine learning models. In the IMMERSE project, we are integrating passive sensor information with the self-report data and we are currently developing and validating deep time series models integrating multi-modal data. These models will move beyond state-of-the-art ML approaches as they will allow the integration over individual time series and make use of group level information for single patient predictions.
• Medical technology transfer and scale-up IMMERSE has gone beyond the-state-of-the-art by developing the building blocks of the platform under a quality management system and based on sustainable components and the scalable technology platform TherapyBuilder. We have approval from the Component Authorities (Eudemed number CIV-22-08-040547). Also, FHIR specifications for interoperability with the international research community as well as integration capability with hospital systems has been provided, in order to work on the transfer from research app to a medical device.
• Implementation and scalability Very little research has been conducted on the implementation of mobile health solutions in mental health. IMMERSE will simultaneously test the treatment effects and implementation models. Our implementation study using an optimum cRCT design over 8 sites in 4 different countries all in different stages of take-up of mHealth, will allow investigating implementation processes and outcomes as well as cost-effectiveness.