Mental health app could help prevent depression in young people at high risk

Mental health app could help prevent depression in young people at high risk

A cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) app, based on Monsenso’s digital health platform, has been found to significantly prevent increases in depression in young people who are at high risk – and could be implemented as a cost- effective, large-scale public mental health measure.

Globally, concern is growing about the high and steadily increasing rates of anxiety and depression in young people. Effective and scalable ways of preventing poor mental health in this group are needed, and digital tools such as mobile apps have been proposed as part of the solution.

Whilst there is emerging evidence for mental health apps being effective in treating anxiety and depression, the EcoWeB project led by the University of Exeter is the first to rigorously test a mental health app on such a large scale across four countries. Two linked papers published on Oct 4 in Lancet Digital Health report the results of the ECoWeB-PREVENT and ECoWeB-PROMOTE trials, which ran concurrently in the four-year study funded by Horizon 2020. Critically, these studies found that a CBT self-help app based on Monsenso’s digital health platform can protect vulnerable young people against depression.

Professor Ed Watkins from the University of Exeter led the project and said: “For young people with elevated risk, our findings suggest the CBT app does have a preventative effect on depression and could have a public health benefit. Participants’ quality-of-life measures were better, and their reported work and social functioning was better.

“However, we also found that it’s hard to make improvements in young people who are basically doing okay. Our findings add to the evidence that prevention for depression works best when we identify and select individuals who are more at risk, rather than take a more universal approach. This identification could be done by an online self-screening process or through professional referral.”

CEO Thomas Lethenborg at Monsenso said: “We are happy with the outcomes of this study and see great potential for our platform based on this. It shows that our platform can be used to deliver cost-effective guidance and interventions at scale and that it can be used to enable large-scale, international decentralised trials collecting continuous real-world data from participants.”

The aim of the EUR 4-million project was to test the effects of mobile apps in preventing depression and promoting mental well-being for young people aged 16 to 22. In one of the largest studies of its kind, 3,700 young people took part across the UK, Germany, Belgium, and Spain and were allocated into two trials based on their emotional competence abilities at the start of the study. That resulted in 1,200 young people with reduced emotional competency scores that confer increased risk for depression such as increased worry and overthinking going into one trial focused on prevention, whilst 2,500 without such risk went into the other trial focused on wellbeing promotion.

Those two groups were then randomised in equal numbers to three different apps developed by the project based on Monsenso’s platform. There was a self-monitoring app where people can report their emotions every day, a self-help app that provided personalised training in emotional competence skills, and a self-help app based on CBT principles. Participants were then followed up at three months and 12 months to see how their wellbeing and depression symptoms changed.

The trials found the CBT app prevented an increase in depression, relative to self-monitoring in the higher risk sample, but that there was no difference between any of the interventions in their effects for the lower risk sample.

Professor Ed Watkins at University of Exeter said: “Our results suggest that even when young people used the self-help app just a few times, there was a small but meaningful benefit. Because the app is scalable to large numbers of people in a cost-effective way, these effects have potential value as a public health intervention, within a broader portfolio of digital and in-person services and interventions. Next steps are to identify the active ingredients of the app that were beneficial and to improve engagement and ongoing use of these elements.”

The project involved 13 different partners, including two commercial companies – digital health platform provider Monsenso and German voice analysis company audEERING. The University of Exeter (UK), LMU Munich (Germany), Ghent University (Belgium), and Universitat Jaume I (Spain), were the main treatment development and trial sites. Meanwhile, the University of Oxford led on the qualitative analysis.

The studies are titled ‘Emotional competence self-help app versus cognitive-behavioural self-help app versus self-monitoring app to prevent depression in young adults with elevated risk (ECoWeB PREVENT): an international, multicentre, parallel, open-label, randomised controlled trial‘ and ‘Emotional competence self-help mobile phone app versus cognitive behavioural self-help app versus self-monitoring app to promote mental wellbeing in healthy young adults (ECoWeB PROMOTE): an international, multicentre, parallel, open-label, randomised controlled trial’, and both are published in Lancet Digital Health. This work was supported by European Union Horizon 2020 Personalised Medicine SC1-PM-07–2017 grant agreement 754657.


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Monsenso signs new agreement with a leading pharmaceutical for a real-world data project in Denmark

Monsenso signs new agreement with a leading pharmaceutical for a real-world data project in Denmark

Monsenso signs a new agreement with a leading pharmaceutical company to implement its solution for decentralised patient-centric real-world data collection in a chronic disease area.

Under the new agreement, Monsenso will deliver and support real-world patient data collection for a decentralised patient-centric study expected to take place over the next 12 months.

The agreement and the solution delivered build on Monsenso’s existing platform, which will be customised to support the specific study and the disease of the patient group. It also includes developing new features to support the patient-centric real-world data study, which will position Monsenso’s solution even stronger in the future.

“With this project, we hope to contribute to getting deeper learnings on which treatments work for which patients by continuously engaging and collecting real-world data from patients.

The potential of this engagement is significant – both with the pharmaceutical company itself across other geographies and disease areas as well as with similar companies.” says Thomas Lethenborg, CEO of Monsenso.

The project comes one year into the start of the PhaseV research project, where Monsenso further develops its solution to fully support decentralised real-world data studies and trials in collaboration with leading pharmaceutical companies and research institutions.

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Monsenso app used for research project promoting psychological resilience and nature connectedness in university students

Monsenso app used for research project promoting psychological resilience and nature connectedness in university students

The two-day Autumn School event with GoGreenRoutes hosted at the Hamilton Institute, Maynooth University (October 12th – 13th), saw the launch of a new configuration of our mobile application designed to promote psychological resilience and nature connectedness in university students across six participating European cities. Both mental health and nature are currently under threat globally, yet the optimal solution may be to address both challenges together with benefits for well-being and the natural environment.

The six-week digital programme focuses upon cultivating key psychological skills and enhancing participants’ relationship with the natural world through engagement with bespoke psychoeducational materials and a suite of nature-based activities. The programme will be made available to a range of students in GoGreenRoutes ‘Cultivating’ Cities, Limerick, Lahti, Umeå, Tallinn, Versailles and Burgas, over the coming six-month period.

The programme development has been led by the Institute of Child Education and Psychology, Europe (Ireland) and Monsenso (Denmark), and this process has been carefully conducted with the end user in mind. Programme content is based upon cutting-edge research in the promotion of psychological resilience and the need to cultivate the relationship between humans and nature.

Participating users of the research project will consist of university students in each of the six cities, who will embark upon an experiential six-week learning journey wherein one specific domain of psychological resilience will be addressed each week. A selection of five suggested nature-centered activities is provided in the application for each of the six resilience domains, with users retaining a sense of autonomy as to determining which of the activities are most suitable to their needs and preferences.

Participant engagement with the programme will be monitored on an ongoing weekly basis, and the efficacy of the programme will be assessed based upon the impact noted in users’ psychological resilience, nature connectedness, psychological wellbeing, pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, sleep quality, and levels of outdoor activity across the six-week engagement period.

The first rollout of the programme will commence in mid-November and the implementation process will continue in the six European cities until April 2024.

For more information about the research project, visit GoGreenRoutes.eu.

Monsenso Implements The Shape Up Method

Monsenso Implements The Shape Up Method

Monsenso has moved on from Scrum and are now using The Shape Up Method. This has meant changes …. in a good way.

With Shape Up we focus on an appetite and cycles instead of focusing on sprints and estimates. Some will say same, same, but we believe there is a difference.

The appetite for a project defines the length of a cycle. This means that we work on narrowing down the problem and designing the outline of a solution that fits within the constraints of our appetite.

With this approach, time is fixed, but scope is variable. Cycles are long enough to build something meaningful start-to-finish and short enough that everyone can feel the deadline looming from the start, so the time is spent wisely.

The method consist of three major parts: Shaping, Betting and Building.
The work is shaped prior to starting a cycle. Shaping results in a Pitch, which outlines the problem and the solution, as well as no-gos and possible rabbit holes. The pitch is concrete enough that the team know what to do, yet abstract enough that there is room to work out the interesting details themselves.

Next, the pitches are brought to the Betting table, where it is decided what pitches should be worked on in the forthcoming cycle. This is the only official meeting within the Shape Up method, which is a plus according to our developing team.

“One meeting in the shape up method – the Betting Table – which means there’s no unnecessary meetings. Meetings, which would otherwise take time away from actual development.”

Then the Building begins. Here, full responsibility is given to the team. They define their own tasks, make adjustments to the scope, and work together to build vertical slices of the product one at a time.

With Shape Up, we all work towards a common goal within a cycle. The development team brings the rest of the company along for the ride, as they demo their work during the cycle. This way, every employee is updated on the work being done, and everyone has a chance to give feedback. With this, everyone gets to be a part of the process. This has brought the team closer to the product and closer together.

The results so far: the organisation has been brought closer to the product and closer together and the speed with which we are producing usable features for our customers has significantly increased. We are learning everyday and believe there is still a lot of things we can improve using Shape Up.

If this sounds like something, you want to be a part of, apply for a spot on our team as a Software Developer.

You can find the job post here.

For more information about the Shape Up method, you can check out this podcast from the company, who invented the method, 37signals.

They also have a free book on the method, which you can check out here.

Monsenso signs major new agreement with a European capital

Monsenso signs major new agreement with a European capital

Monsenso has been elected the best bidder in a public tender and signs a framework agreement to deliver its digital solution to support health services in a European capital.

The framework agreement makes it possible for the city, the university, a hospital and other health institutions in the area to purchase Monsenso’s validated digital health solution and associated services for 30 months with the possibility to prolong for two times five years.

The signing of the framework agreement comes with initial million-kroner orders to implement and operate Monsenso’s solution for 30 months to digitally support and increase access to services for young people with mental health challenges and for people with addiction.

Service users are provided with an app, which is used to collect real-time patient-reported information and to give self-help information and guidance between consultations. Health professionals gain access to a clinical web portal to follow their patients remotely and gain valuable information about behaviour, symptoms and adherence to treatment. This enables clinicians to provide a data-driven treatment and allows for proactive follow-up. In addition, the solution supports communication between service users and therapists.

The potential of this framework agreement is significant. It comes with an initial order that will generate recurring revenue for Monsenso in the coming years, and the potential from other departments and entities within the city already covered by the framework agreement as well as similar European cities is substantial” says Thomas Lethenborg, CEO of Monsenso. “Addiction and youth mental illness are both large burdens of disease and affect far too many people, so we are proud to contribute to providing better access to high-quality services in the city”.

Further information:

Monsenso:

CEO
Thomas Lethenborg
Tel. +45 21 29 88 27
E-mail: lethenborg@monsenso.com 

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