Assessing Effectiveness of ThoughtFullChat Application in Improving Mental Well-Being

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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To determine the state of mental health among house officers, IMU corporate staff, IMU students and IMU faculty To find out the effectiveness and user experience of text-based mental health coaching applications among house officers, IMU corporate staff, IMU students and IMU faculty IMU - International Medical University

Detailed Description
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The text-based mental health coaching application that the investigators are using is ThoughtFullChat Application. ThoughtFullChat Application provides mental health coaching through text by licensed mental health professionals. Participants of this research will be required to answer a set of questionnaires which consists of DASS-21, Satisfaction with Life Scale and Brief Resilience Scale at the start of the study. Participants will be randomly distributed into 2 groups which are intervention and control groups. Participants in the intervention group will be using the application for 3 months. Post-intervention questionnaires will be given to all participants after 3 months. Data collected from these 2 groups will be analyzed by using SPSS.

Official Title
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Assessing Effectiveness of a Text-based Mental Health Coaching Application in Improving Mental Well-Being Among House Officers, IMU Faculty, IMU Corporate Staff and IMU Students in Malaysia

Conditions
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Anxiety, Depression, Stress, Resilience

Intervention / Treatment
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* Other: ThoughtFullChat Application


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: House Officers in Malaysia (UD41) Corporate staff in IMU, IMU Faculty Members All students who are currently studying in IMU who give their consent Competent in English Language Experiencing none to severe stress, anxiety or depression based on DASS-21 score Exclusion Criteria: Medical students, Medical Officers (UD44) Contract staff, Outsourced staff or international staff in IMU campuses Students who refuse to give their consent and those that have already or just graduated from IMU Competent in other languages except English Experiencing extremely severe stress, anxiety or depression based on the DASS-21 score

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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No

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Treatment
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| No Intervention: Without ThoughtFullChat Application<br>Participants will not use the app during the 3 months | |
| Experimental: With ThoughtFullChat Application<br>Participants will be using the app during the 3 months | Other: ThoughtFullChat Application<br>* A subscription-based mobile platform that empowers users to proactively engage with their mental health via self-serve tools and 1-on-1 daily bite-sized coaching with certified mental health professionals.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Anxiety | Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale - 21 Items (DASS-21), a self report scale is used to measure the participants' emotional states of depression, anxiety and stress. For anxiety component, it contains 7 items and scores from 0 to 3 for each item. The total scores of each subscale need to be multiplied by 2 and are categorized into 5 severity ranges: normal, mild, moderate, severe and extremely severe. The severity ranges for anxiety are: normal (0-7); mild (8-9); moderate (10-14); severe (15-19) and extremely severe (20+). | 3 months | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Depression | Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale - 21 Items (DASS-21), a self report scale is used to measure the participants' emotional states of depression, anxiety and stress. For depression component, it contains 7 items and scores from 0 to 3 for each item. The total scores of each subscale need to be multiplied by 2 and are categorized into 5 severity ranges: normal, mild, moderate, severe and extremely severe. The severity ranges for depression are: normal (0-9); mild (10-13); moderate (14-20); severe (21-27) and extremely severe (28+). | 3 months | 
| Stress | Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale - 21 Items (DASS-21), a self report scale is used to measure the participants' emotional states of depression, anxiety and stress. For stress component, it contains 7 items and scores from 0 to 3 for each item. The total scores of each subscale need to be multiplied by 2 and are categorized into 5 severity ranges: normal, mild, moderate, severe and extremely severe. The severity ranges for stress are: normal (0-14); mild (15-18); moderate (1-25); severe (26-33) and extremely severe (34+). | 3 months | 
| Resilience | Brief Resilience Scale is created to assess the perceived ability to bounce back or recover from stress. The scale was developed to assess a unitary construct of resilience, including both positively and negatively worded items. It consists of 6 items, each item scores from 1 to 5. Items 1, 3, 5 are positively worded while items 2, 4, 6 are negatively worded. The total score of Brief Resilience Scale will be the mean of the 6 items. The average score can be interpreted as follows: 1.00 to 2.99 (low resilience); 2.00 to 4.3 (normal resilience) and 4.31 to 5.00 (high resilience). | 3 months | 
| Satisfaction with Life | Satisfaction with Life Scale is developed to assess satisfaction with people's lives as a whole. The scale has 5 items with each item ranges from 1 to 7. The total range of scores is 5-35 while 20 point is the neutral point in the scale. The scores can be interpreted as follows: 5-9 (extremely dissatisfied with life), 31-35 (extremely satisfied). | 3 months | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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Mental Health Wellbeing, Text-based Mental Health Coaching Application