Supporting mental health during COVID-19 using a digital behaviour change intervention: an open-label, single-arm, pre-post intervention research study.

Summers, Charlotte; Wu, Philip; Taylor, Alisdair J G

BACKGROUND COVID-19 is taking its toll on people's mental health, particularly as people are advised to adhere to social distancing, self-isolation measures and government-imposed national lockdowns. Digital health technologies have an important role to play in keeping people connected and supporting mental health and wellbeing. Even before COVID-19, mental health and social services were already stretched. OBJECTIVE Our objective was to evaluate the 12-week outcomes of the digitally delivered Gro Health platform, a holistic digital behaviour change intervention for self-management of mental wellbeing, sleep, activity, and nutrition. METHODS The study used a quasi-experimental research design consisting of an open-label, single-arm, pre-post intervention engagement using a convenience sample. Adults who had joined the Gro Health platform (intervention) and had a complete baseline dataset (GAD-7 Anxiety Test Questionnaire, Perceived Stress Scale, PHQ-9 Patient Health Questionnaire), were followed up at 12 weeks (N=273), including 33 (12.1%) who reported a positive COVID-19 diagnosis during the study period. User engagement with the Gro Health platform was tracked by measuring total minutes of app engagement. Paired t-tests were used to compare pre- and post-intervention scores and linear regression analysis was performed to assess the relationship between minutes of active engagement with Gro Health and changes in scores across the different mental health measures. RESULTS Of the 347 study participants, 273 (78.67%) completed both baseline and follow up surveys. Change in scores for anxiety, perceived stress and depression was predicted by app engagement with the strongest effect being seen in change perceived stress scores F(1,271)=251.397, p<0.001, with an R2 of .479. CONCLUSIONS A digital behaviour change platform that provides remote mental wellbeing support can be effective in managing depression, anxiety, and perceived stress during times of crisis such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. The outcomes of this paper may also support the implementation of remote digital health apps supporting behaviour change and support for low levels of mental health in the community. CLINICALTRIAL