Actissist (Active Assistance for Psychological Therapy

Disease Area Impacted

Psychosis

Project Overview

National clinical guidelines recommend a treatment known as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for people who have experienced psychosis. However, only around 1 in 10 people with psychosis actually receive CBT. To help address this, an Actissist 1.0 pilot project aimed to develop a CBT-informed mobile phone app (Actissist) for people who have experienced a first episode of psychosis and assess the feasibility and acceptability of the app. Since the original Actissist pilot trial study, a more recent Actissist 2.0 project has been underway. Actissist 2.0 is a larger-scale randomised controlled trial over three years. The aims of this project are to see whether:

– people will use the app.

– people like using the app.

– the app improves people’s mental health.

More details can be found here:

Home

Actissist 1.0 pilot

START: MAY 2014

END: JULY 2016

FUNDED BY: MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

Actissist 2.0

START: OCT 2017

END: OCT 2020

FUNDED BY: MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

Data Source and Methodology

This investigation utilised a randomised controlled study design in which participants were assigned to use either the CBT-informed Actissist app (treatment group), or the symptom monitoring ClinTouch app (control group). Assessment points allowed comparisons to be drawn between the treatment and control groups on important factors related to mental health (e.g. symptom severity, quality of life). The acceptability of the Actissist app will be determined by qualitative interview with studies participants to explore their perceptions of the app.

Findings and Publications

The Actissist app was developed and trialled over a 26-month period. Researchers found that the Actissist app appeared to be safe and acceptable for people experiencing early psychosis.

https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/44/5/1070/4939353

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wps.20535#.WxAO7_vheXA.twitter

https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13063-015-0943-3

https://www.jmir.org/2016/5/e121/

https://mental.jmir.org/2017/4/e52/

https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-018-1979-1

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/papt.12222

Benefits

The Actissist 2.0 project can be personally beneficial to people in the early stages of psychosis. Moreover, the Actissist app could also potentially reduce NHS costs by providing a timely intervention which may prevent chronic illness. Consequently, any person who contributes to the NHS (i.e. by paying taxes) or accesses NHS services could potentially benefit from this project.

Researchers Involved

Dr Sandra Bucci

Dr John Ainsworth

Prof. Gillian Haddock

Dr Katherine Berry

Dr Dawn Edge

Dr Richard Emsley.

Prof. Shôn Lewis

Mr Matthew Machin

Dr. Natalie Berry

Dr. Alyson Williams

Rose Dickin

Rosa Pitts