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Feasibility of a Digital Intervention for Patients Frequently Admitted to Psychiatric Acute Wards
Sponsor: Haukeland University Hospital
Summary
This qualitative feasibility study investigates a digital health app designed for patients who are frequently admitted to the psychiatric acute ward, to facilitate crisis support outside of office hours to avoid unnecessary readmissions, as well as self-harm. As this is a novel app to be implemented in an already existing service, key uncertainties regarding the intervention content and its delivery needs to be addressed before potentially conducting a full-scale trial, or, alternatively, to inform further intervention refinement. Such uncertainties are appropriate to explore in a feasibility study according to the Medical Research Council (MRC) framework for the development and evaluation of complex interventions. There is a need to investigate whether the app is acceptable and useful to the patients using it, and to the healthcare providers who respond to it. There is also a need to know whether the healthcare providers responding to the app find the task manageable. The context in which the staff are to deliver the intervention, i.e. the in-bed ward, may be subject to different barriers, such as a staff shortage due to sick leave and heavy workload in the ward. Such barriers are essential to identify ahead of possible future trials in other contexts.
Official title: Feasibility of a Digital Intervention for Patients Frequently Admitted to Psychiatric Acute Wards: the MULI App Study
Key Details
Gender
All
Age Range
18 Years - Any
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Enrollment
25
Start Date
2025-06-12
Completion Date
2026-12-31
Last Updated
2025-05-31
Healthy Volunteers
No
Interventions
Muli-app
The Muli-app is designed after a traffic-light model, indicating different levels of severity of emotional distress and need for help. Green parts represent self-management measures that can be taken to try to regulate themselves (coping plan, write notes for their next appointment , and exercises to reduce emotional distress.) Yellow parts represent contact-based measures when the patient needs someone to talk to outside office hours, to de-escalate emotional distress and to avoid further crisis. This function connects study participants with mental health professionals at the local psychiatric hospital outside office hours (chat, phone or videocall). When the patient activates this function, the staff at the local hospital have 30 minutes to reply. The red part also activates contact with the local psychiatric hospital, but with a need of acute response, activating acute measures stated in the coping plan, such as access to an open bed in the municipality.
Locations (1)
Haukeland University Hospital
Bergen, Norway