Acceptability, Engagement, and Effects of a Mobile Digital Intervention to Support Mental Health for Young Adults Transitioning to College: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The transition from high school to college can exacerbate mental health problems in young adults yet barriers prevent seamless mental health care. Existing digital support tools show promise but are not yet designed to optimize engagement or implementation. OBJECTIVE: The goal of the research was to test acceptability and effects of an automated digital Mobile Support Tool for Mental Health (MoST-MH) for young adults transitioning to college. METHODS: Youths aged 18 years and older with a current mental health diagnosis preparing to transition to college (n=52; 85% female [45/52], 91% White [48/52]) were recruited from a primary care (n=31) and a mental health clinic (n=21). Participants were randomized 2:1 to either receive MoST-MH (n=34) or enhanced Usual Care (eUC; n=18). MoST-MH included periodic text message and web-based check-ins of emotional health, stressors, negative impacts, and self-efficacy that informed tailored self-care support messages. Both eUC and MoST-MH participants received links to a library of psychoeducational videos and were asked to complete web-based versions of the Mental Health Self-Efficacy Scale (MHSES), College Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms (CCAPS), and Client Service Receipt Inventory for Mental Health (C-SRI) monthly for 3 months and the Post-Study System Usability Scale (PSSUQ) at 3-months. RESULTS: MoST-MH participants were sent a median of 5 (range 3 to 10) text message check-in prompts over the 3-month study period and 100% were completed; participants were sent a median of 2 (range 1 to 8) web-based check-in prompts among which 78% (43/55) were completed. PSSUQ scores indicate high usability (mean score 2.0). Results from the completer analysis demonstrated reductions in mental health symptoms over time and significant between-group effects of MoST-MH compared to eUC on depressive symptom severity (d=0.36, 95% CI 0.08 to 0.64). No significant differences in mental health self-efficacy or mental health health care use were observed. CONCLUSIONS: In this pilot trial, we found preliminary evidence that MoST-MH was engaged with at high rates and found to be highly usable and reduced depression symptoms relative to eUC among youth with mental health disorders transitioning to college. Findings were measured during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the study was not powered to detect differences in outcomes between groups; therefore, further testing is needed. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04560075; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04560075.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".