Enhancing early psychosis treatment using smartphone technology: A longitudinal feasibility and validity study

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Digital Health
• Adolescent and Young Adult Mental Health

Background:

• Smartphone applications show promise for serious mental illness (SMI) symptom tracking and self-management.
• Feasibility is established in adult SMI populations, but not in early psychosis (EP) outpatient care for adolescents and young adults.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the feasibility and validity of implementing a smartphone app and clinician dashboard in an adolescent and young adult early psychosis (EP) outpatient program.
• To compare self-reported symptom data from mobile health (mHealth) technology with gold-standard clinician-rated assessments.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of a smartphone app for daily/weekly symptom surveys and a clinician dashboard in an EP program.
• Longitudinal analysis of within-person data over up to 14 months.
• Comparison of app-based self-report symptom data against clinician-rated interviews.

Main Results:

• Integration of mHealth technology into EP care was feasible.
• Smartphone-based self-report symptom assessment yielded data comparable to gold-standard clinician assessments.
• The study provides methodological details and feasibility metrics for mHealth in EP.

Conclusions:

• Smartphone-based symptom tracking is a feasible and valid tool for early psychosis (EP) outpatient care in adolescent and young adult populations.
• mHealth technology can supplement traditional clinical assessments, offering comparable symptom data.
• This approach supports enhanced self-management and treatment in early intervention services.