Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jan 11, 2022
Date Accepted: Apr 11, 2022
Development of the Mind your Mate program: A peer-support mobile application and web-based lesson for adolescent mental health
ABSTRACT
Background:
Digital technologies and mobile interventions are possible tools for prevention initiatives to target the significant social and economic impacts that anxiety, mood, and substance use disorders have on young people.
Objective:
This paper describes the design and development of the Mind your Mate program, a smartphone app and introductory classroom lesson, enhancing peer support around the topics of anxiety, depression and substance use for adolescents.
Methods:
Development of Mind your Mate was an iterative process conducted in collaboration with adolescents (n=23), experts, school staff and software developers. The development process consisted of three stages: 1) scoping; 2) end-user consultations, including a web-based survey and two focus groups with n=23 adolescents (mean age 15.9, SD 0.6 years); 3) app development and beta-testing.
Results:
This process resulted in a smartphone peer-support app and introductory classroom lesson aiming to empower adolescents to access evidence-based information and tools to better support peers around mental health and/or substance use related issues. The program contains links to external support services and encourages adolescents to reach out for help if they are concerned about themselves or a friend.
Conclusions:
The Mind your Mate program was developed in collaboration with a number of key stakeholders in youth mental health, including adolescents themselves. The resulting program has the potential to be taken to scale to aid prevention efforts for youth mental health and substance use. The next step is to conduct a randomised controlled trial testing the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of the program Clinical Trial: N/a
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© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.