The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has changed access to and the delivery of medical care across the world rapidly and radically as increasingly large waves of patients fill clinics, hospital wards, and intensive care units (ICUs). Patients with comparable illnesses have high rates of persistent psychological distress symptoms including depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Currently there are few easily accessible therapies available for this distress in this time of deep fear and worry, social distancing, cancelled clinics, isolation and quarantine practices, and understaffed hospitals.~Lift, a novel mobile app-based mindfulness intervention, may be able to address COVID-19 patients' distress and access to care issues. Lift was piloted successfully in the intensive care unit (ICU; R34 AT00819) and is currently in the midst of a multicenter factorial experimental clinical trial designed to determine which of 8 versions is optimized for symptom relief, cost, and scalability (parent U01 AT009974).~This 2-arm, parallel group randomized clinical trial seeks to expand the scope of the parent U01 project to test the clinical impact of a psychological distress intervention rapidly deployed during a pandemic. This trial will include 300 patients who were hospitalized due to COVID-19; collect data at 1, 3, and 6 months post-discharge; and address 3 specific aims: (1) Compare the clinical impact of Lift vs. usual care control and (2) Compare long-term (6-month) outcomes of RCT patients both by treatment arm as well to the entire BLUE CORAL cohort, and (3) Explore participant-reported barriers and facilitators to intervention deployment, uptake, and engagement in a pandemic.
This is a randomized clinical trial (RCT) nested within the NIH PETAL Network's COVID cohort study (BLUE CORAL [Biology and Longitudinal Epidemiology: COVID Observational Study]) of patients hospitalized for COVID-19-related illness. COVID-19 patients enrolled in BLUE CORAL with elevated distress symptoms 1 month post-discharge will be randomized to either the Lift mobile app intervention or a usual care control.