JoyPop Mobile Mental Health App With Indigenous Youth
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Usual Practice + JoyPop.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Emotion Regulation, Depression, Anxiety, Stress. Basic parameters: 12 years — 17 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- Canada
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
Unsure about the terms? Read our patient guide →
Official title
Increasing Access to Mental Health Support for 12-17 Year Old Indigenous Youth With the JoyPop Mobile Mental Health App: Randomized Controlled Trial
Overview
Indigenous youth in Northwestern Ontario who need mental health supports experience longer waits than non-Indigenous youth within the region and when compared to youth in other more urban areas. Limited access and extended waits can exacerbate symptoms, prolong distress, and increase risk for more serious outcomes. Novel, innovative approaches are urgently needed to provide support for Indigenous youth in Northwestern Ontario. In partnership with Dilico Anishinabek Family Care, the investigators are evaluating the impact of a mental health app (JoyPop) as a tool for Indigenous youth who are waiting for mental health services. The JoyPop app was developed to support improved emotion regulation - a key difficulty for youth presenting with mental health challenges. A two-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the app compared to usual practice while Indigenous youth are waiting for mental health services.
Detailed description
Indigenous youth in Northwestern Ontario who need mental health supports experience longer waits than non-Indigenous youth within the region and when compared to youth in other more urban areas. Limited access and extended waits can exacerbate symptoms, prolong distress, increase risk for more serious outcomes like suicide, self-harm, and hospitalization, and negatively impact engagement in treatment once it is offered. Novel, innovative approaches are urgently needed to provide support for Indigenous youth in Northwestern Ontario.
In partnership with Dilico Anishinabek Family Care, the investigators are evaluating the impact of a mental health app (JoyPop) as a tool for Indigenous youth who are waiting for mental health services. The JoyPop app was developed to support improved emotion regulation - a key difficulty for youth presenting with mental health challenges. Despite the promise of mobile mental health apps, significant gaps exist between the growing number of apps available in the public domain and empirical demonstration of the beneficial impacts of apps for users. Of the apps that address emotion regulation, most have not been evaluated, are narrow in scope, or have only been evaluated among non-diverse adult populations. The JoyPop app includes a broader focus, and this research is unique given its focus on rigorously evaluating the JoyPop app as a tool for treatment-seeking, Indigenous youth in Northwestern Ontario.
Using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design, the primary objective is to determine the effectiveness of the JoyPop app in improving emotion regulation among Indigenous youth (12-17) who are waiting for mental health services as compared to usual practice (UP; monitoring those on the wait-list). The secondary objectives are to: (1) Assess change in mental health difficulties and treatment readiness between youth in each condition to better understand the app's broader impact as a wait-list tool; (2) Conduct an economic analysis to determine whether receiving the app while waiting for mental health services reduces other health service use and associated costs; (3) Define the Minimal Clinically Important Difference (MCID) for the primary outcome measure; and (4) Assess youth perspective the quality of the JoyPop app.
Interventions
- Behavioral Usual Practice + JoyPop
Participants will be asked to use the app at least twice daily but will otherwise not be provided with requirements related to feature or total usage.
Primary outcome measures
- Change in emotion regulation (overall) [Time frame: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale - Short Form will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change in emotion regulation (strategies) [Time frame: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale - Short Form will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change in emotion regulation (non-acceptance) [Time frame: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale - Short Form will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change in emotion regulation (impulse) [Time frame: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale - Short Form will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change in emotion regulation (goals) [Time frame: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale - Short Form will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change in emotion regulation (awareness) [Time frame: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale - Short Form will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change in emotion regulation (clarity) [Time frame: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale - Short Form will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
Secondary outcome measures (11)
- Change in psychological distress [Time frame: Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale 21 will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change in depressive symptoms [Time frame: Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale 21 will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change in anxious symptoms [Time frame: Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale 21 will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change in stress [Time frame: Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale 21 will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change is overall difficulties [Time frame: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change is emotional problems [Time frame: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change is conduct problems [Time frame: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change is hyperactivity [Time frame: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change is peer problems [Time frame: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change is prosocial behaviour [Time frame: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
- Change in treatment readiness [Time frame: Treatment Readiness subscale of the Motivation for Youth's Treatment Scale will be administered at baseline (pre), after 2 weeks (mid), and after 4 weeks (post)]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- Indigenous youth must be on the wait-list for mental health services at Dilico Anishinabek Family Care and be between 12-17 years old.
- Eligible youth will also need to be available to attend a virtual or in-person orientation session.
- In order to download the JoyPop app, participants will need access to an iOS device (e.g., iPhone, iPad). Refurbished iPhones containing just the JoyPop app will be provided to participants to use for the duration of the trial if they do not have access to their own.
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: Yes
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Single blind
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
Study locations
Canada · 1 center
- Lakehead University — Thunder Bay
Publications
- Mushquash AR, Neufeld T, Malik I, Toombs E, Olthuis JV, Schmidt F, Dunning C, Stasiuk K, Bobinski T, Ohinmaa A, Newton A, Stewart SH. Increasing access to mental health supports for 12-17-year-old Indigenous youth with the JoyPop mobile mental health app: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials. 2024 Apr 4;25(1):234. doi: 10.1186/s13063-024-08076-y. PMID 38575945
Identifiers
NCT: NCT05898516 · 100157