Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Sep 23, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 23, 2022 - Nov 18, 2022
Date Accepted: Dec 20, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Mobile Mental Health in Women’s Community Based Organizations: Protocol for a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.
ABSTRACT
Background:
One in 10 women in rural India suffers from a common mental disorder (CMD) such as depression, and untreated depression is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Several factors lead to a large treatment gap specifically for women in rural India, including stigma, lack of provider mental health workforce and travel times. There is an urgent need to improve the rates of detection and treatment of depression among women in rural India without overburdening the scarce mental health resources. We propose to develop, test, and deploy a mental health app (MITHRA - Multiuser Interactive Health Response Application) for depression screening and brief intervention, designed for use in women’s self-help group(SHG)s in rural India.
Objective:
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Methods:
We will use focus groups with SHG members and community health workers to guide the initial development of the app, followed by iterative modification based on input from a participatory design group comprised of proposed end users of the app (SHG members). The final version of the app will then be deployed for testing in a pilot cluster randomized trial, with three SHGs randomized to receive the app, and three to receive enhanced care as usual.
Results:
This study was funded in June 2021. As of September 2022, we have completed both focus groups, one PDG, and app development.
Conclusions:
Delivering app-based depression screening and treatment in community settings such as SHGs can address the stigma and transportation related barriers to access to depression care and overcome the cultural and contextual barriers to mHealth utilization. It can also address the mental health workforce shortage. If we find that the MITHRA approach is feasible, we will test the implementation and effectiveness of MITHRA in multiple SHGs across India in a larger RCT. This approach of leveraging community-based organizations to improve the reach of depression screening and treatment is also applicable in rural and underserved areas across the globe.
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