Can Mental Health Apps Work in the Real World? A Feasibility Pilot Study.
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01808976. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
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Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Over two million people in the US download health apps onto their smartphones and tablets, with the intent of improving their quality of life. Despite widespread use of these apps, there is relatively little information regarding app user access (do users download health apps and use them more than once), app user engagement (do users follow the app protocols) and app impact on mood, cognition and daily functioning. Our long-term goal is to conduct a future randomized controlled trial investigating access, engagement and impact of two types of mental health apps, apps based on evidence-based therapeutic principles (i.e.: Problem Solving Therapy) and apps based on cognitive neuroscience principles of depression (i.e.: a cognitive training game called Evolution) and compare both to an information only app. Our intent is to conduct this study entirely on mobile devices, in order to investigate access, engagement, and impact in an ecologically valid manner. The purpose of this pilot study is to test the feasibility of conducting our future randomized controlled trial comparing three mobile mental health apps for the management of depressed mood, improvement of cognitive control, and improvement in activities of daily living in people aged 18 and older. Recruitment, consent, randomization, app use and outcome assessment will be conducted entirely on mobile devices. We will recruit 150 people through four different recruitment avenues to determine which avenue results in the most representative sample of our target population (people 18 and older who have symptoms of depression that are interfering with their quality of life). We will also determine the number we need to recruit to have a final sample of 150 people willing to be randomized between the 3 apps and complete an 12-week study of app impact on mood, cognition and function. This pilot will provide information on the completeness of data from a study conducted in this manner, and uncover any other challenges we may face by using mobile devices for data collection, and if we will find differential drop out between app type (e.g.: will more people stop using of the information only app prematurely?). Although we will not have sufficient statistical power to answer questions about comparative effectiveness between the apps, we plan to explore relationships between sample demographics, app use, and improvement in cognitive control on improvements in mood and function.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT01808976
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 1,000 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Interventions
- Problem Solving Therapy Other
- Evolution Behavioral
- Basic health push app Behavioral
Other · Behavioral
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Mar 31, 2013
- Primary completion
- Dec 31, 2016
- Completion
- Jan 31, 2017
- Last update posted
- May 3, 2017
2013 – 2017
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web-based; log onto www.brightenstudy.com/spa for details | San Francisco | California | 94110 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01808976, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted May 3, 2017 · Synced Sep 1, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT01808976 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.