JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Suicide is a prominent cause of death worldwide and this is particularly the case among young people. It was the second leading cause of death among 15–29 year-olds globally in 2016. Treatment for patients with suicidal thoughts or behaviour often includes face-to-face psychological therapy with a mental health professional. These forms of interventions may involve a patient maintaining and updating paper-based reports or worksheets in between sessions. Mobile technology can offer a way to support the implementation of evidence-based psychological techniques, and the acquisition of protective coping skills.

Objective:

The aim of this research project was to develop a mobile app to facilitate service users’ access to mental health supports and safety planning. This process involved eliciting expert input from clinicians who are actively engaged in the provision of mental health care.

Methods:

A survey was distributed to targeted healthcare professionals to determine what features should be prioritised in a new mobile app relating to suicide prevention. Based on the survey results, a clinical design group was established comprising six members with experience in fields such as mHealth, clinical psychology and suicide prevention. This group was supplemented with further input from additional clinicians who provided feedback over three focus group sessions. The sessions were centred on refining existing app components and evaluating new feature requests. This process was iterated through regular feedback until agreement was reached on the overall app design and functionality.

Results:

A fully functional mobile app, known as the SafePlan app, was developed and tested with the input of clinicians through an iterative design process. The app’s core function is to provide an interactive safety plan to support users with suicidal thoughts or behaviours as an adjunct to face-to-face therapy. A diary component which facilitates the generalization of skills learned through dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) was also implemented. Usability testing was carried out on the final prototype by students from a local secondary school, who are representative of the target user population in both age and technology experience. The students were asked to complete a System Usability Survey (SUS) at the end of this session. The mean overall SUS rating evaluated to 71.85.

Conclusions:

The participatory process involving key stakeholders (clinicians, psychologists, IT specialists) has resulted in the creation of an mHealth intervention technology that has the potential to increase accessibility to this type of mental health service for the target population. The app has gone through the initial testing phase and the relevant recommendations have been implemented, and it is now ready for trialling with both clinicians and their patients.