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Optimizing Engagement With Digital Mental Health Services Among Sexual And Gender Minority Consumers (QT-DIMES)
Sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations are disproportionately impacted by mental health concerns relative to their heterosexual and cisgender peers. Despite high need, SGM populations continue to report unmet mental health needs because they cannot or do not access mental health services. Digital Mental Health (DMH) services have been recognized as feasible, economical, and effective options to broaden the availability of mental health care to consumers who face barriers to mental health help-seeking. SGM consumers cite a preference for DMH care and this delivery format holds promise to attend to major mental health care access barriers experienced by this consumer group. Yet, the availability of DMH services tailored to the needs of SGM consumers is limited, and a dearth of research examines SGM populations' actual engagement with DMH services. A potential solution to fully understand how SGM populations utilize DMH services would be to characterize their engagement within a natural setting. Leveraging an established partnership with Mental Health America (MHA), a non-profit mental health advocacy group offering free, evidence-based screenings and self-guided DMH resources, this study will follow a large, naturalistic sample of SGM DMH consumers with the aim to test tailored engagement strategies with SGM DMH consumers using a micro-randomized trial (MRT) design. Results of this study will inform if delivering engagement strategies can meaningfully increase initial and sustained engagement with MHA resources and which types of strategies, specifically, work best for which users.
Details
| Lead sponsor | University of Washington |
|---|---|
| Phase | NA |
| Status | RECRUITING |
| Enrolment | 2300 |
| Start date | 2026-03-12 |
| Completion | 2027-05 |
Conditions
- Engagement, Patient
Interventions
- HAPA Engagement Strategies
Primary outcomes
- Proximal engagement — Single web session capped at 30 minutes of inactivity
Initial engagement (at Decision Point 1, Screening Results page) is a binary indicator of whether a participant clicks to one of the targeted Next Steps Content Pages displayed on the Screening Results Page following randomization (yes/no). If a participant does not navigate to one of the targeted Next Steps pages before leaving the MHA website or before the session ends due to 30 minutes of inactivity then the outcome will be coded as "no." - Proximal engagement — Single web session capped at 30 minutes of inactivity
Sustained engagement (Decision Point 2, Next Steps Content Pages) is a binary indicator of whether a participant clicks to any additional page on the MHA website following randomization (yes/no). If a participant does not navigate to another page before leaving the MHA website or before the session ends due to 30 minutes of inactivity then the outcome will be coded as "no."
Countries
United States