This 8-week, clinical trial involves primary care patients with clinically significant depression and/or anxiety recruited via provider referral. Participants will received access to a digital mental health intervention with known efficacy and be randomized to an engagement strategy condition--a previously-validated Coach Support protocol (CS), a newly-developed automated motivational messaging protocol (AMM), both or neither. To further understand how messages in the AMM arms function, message delivery will be micro-randomized: each day participants will be randomized to receive a message or not, such that they receive an average of 4.2 messages/week. Micro-randomization allows causal inference about the near-term impact of message delivery (i.e., are AMMs a cue to action) and the relationship between message impact and context (e.g., day in study). Measured outcome data will include level of engagement (operationalized as minutes of intervention use) and weekly self-reports of clinical outcomes.
This study is a clinical trial that evaluates what drives patient engagement and tests the impact of two strategies-automated motivational push messaging and coach support-to improve engagement with an evidence-based mobile app intervention for depression and/or anxiety.