Real world barriers to uptake in digital mental health interventions
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Real world barriers to uptake in digital mental health interventions: A mixed methods, exploratory study.
IRAS ID
308549
Contact name
Jacinta Jardine
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
SilverCloud Health
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 3 months, 0 days
Research summary
Mental ill health is a burgeoning problem across the globe. Digital mental health interventions (DMHI’s), show comparable outcomes to face-to-face psychological therapy in the treatment of common mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, as well as providing additional benefits like increased access, reduced waiting time and lower costs. A significant issue when it comes to DMHI’s however, is user engagement and adherence. These treatments rely on users to actively participate in order to obtain said favourable outcomes, yet attrition and premature dropout are rife, especially in real-world settings.
Common barriers to the uptake of DMHI’s include stigma, preferring to deal with the problem alone, and low perceived need. However, much of the existing research in this area focuses on quantitative predictors of engagement and dropout and is based on clinical trials of online interventions. Experimental research is not always comparable to real world settings, particularly in the area of engagement. We have therefore designed our study to be an exploratory, observational, mixed-methods inquiry into the experiences of real world users in a natural implementation setting. Data collection will be in the form of a short online survey and semi-structured interviews.
We are looking specifically at two groups of users - those who visit an open signup website and are undecided about signing up for the intervention, and those who sign up for the intervention and don’t return after their initial use. We aim to explore the barriers that prevent users from signing up or progressing with the DMHI. We are also planning to gather contextual information on the user, their reason for initial interest in the DMHI and their intervention pathway, to gain a holistic perspective on the factors that affect sign up and uptake of DMHI’s.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/NW/0351
Date of REC Opinion
17 Dec 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion