Psychological distress over time among adolescent Soluna users: A prospective observational study

It is critical to investigate innovative methods of providing immediate mental health support for youth. Soluna is a digital mental health and wellbeing platform for youth ages 13-25 launched and developed through a partnership between the California Department of Health Care Services and Kooth Digital Health as part of California's Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative. Soluna provides users with rapid access to self-help content and tools, pre-moderated peer community, coaching sessions, and care navigation from any internet-connected device.

The purpose of this study is to examine mental health and wellbeing outcomes over time among a self-selected subset of Soluna users aged 14-17.

We conducted a non-randomized, prospective, observational study. Participants completed three surveys (baseline, one-month, and three-months post-baseline) that assessed psychosocial outcomes and self-reported engagement with platform features. The primary outcome was psychological distress as measured by the YP-CORE. We conducted pre-registered analyses to determine whether outcomes changed among participants over the three-month evaluation period.

A total of 232 participants completed baseline measures, with 136 and 98 participants retained at one- and three-month follow-ups, respectively. Participants showed statistically significant within-group reductions in the primary outcome of distress from baseline to three-months (d = 0.63), and statistically significant improvements in secondary outcomes of depression, anxiety, hopelessness, loneliness, suicidal ideation, and quality of life (r = 0.35-0.53).

In this prospective observational study, participants showed statistically-significant within-person reductions in distress. Findings point towards the potential that scalable digital platforms like Soluna may offer accessible mental health and wellbeing support for youth.