Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Feb 26, 2025
Date Accepted: Aug 14, 2025
The Alongside Digital Mental Health Program for Teens: A Pilot Evaluation
ABSTRACT
Background:
Youth are increasingly experiencing psychological distress. Schools are ideal settings for disseminating mental health support, but they are often insufficiently resourced to do so. Digital mental health tools represent a unique avenue to address this gap. The Alongside digital program is one such tool, intended as universal prevention and early intervention. The platform includes social-emotional learning and self-help wellness features as well as an AI-powered chatbot designed to build coping skills.
Objective:
This evaluation aimed to examine the near-term impact of Alongside app usage on students’ self-reported mental health outcomes.
Methods:
We conducted a non-randomized pilot pragmatic evaluation leveraging anonymized user data. All data came from current Alongside users attending public middle and high schools in Texas and New Mexico, between 10-18 years old. Schools were actively engaged in partnership with Alongside and approved all procedures. Users were asked to complete mental health questionnaires upon app registration and at one-month and three-months post-registration. We conducted pre-registered analyses as well as exploratory analyses to determine how symptoms changed over time and what factors (e.g., demographic, app usage) predicted changes in distress.
Results:
Analyses revealed statistically significant within-person decreases in overall distress (YP-CORE; primary outcome) from baseline to one-month with a small effect size (t(42) = 2.21, p = 0.03, r = 0.34); however, there was no evidence that scores significantly decreased from baseline to three-months (W = 1821, n = 85, p = 0.16). We found that at three-months, identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community predicted greater decreases in distress; otherwise no demographic factors were significant predictors. In a non-registered exploratory analysis of a subsample of users who reported elevated distress at baseline, decreases in distress were seen at both one-month (W = 128, n = 20, p = 0.02, r = 0.52) and three-months (W = 682, n = 42, p = 0.004, r = 0.45).
Conclusions:
There may be short-term benefits associated with using the Alongside digital program. Further studies are required to determine potential preventative effects. Clinical Trial: https://osf.io/m8t6k
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