Clinical trial NCT06013137: Chatbot for Depression, Anxiety, and Eating Disorders
Official title: Testing an Artificial Intelligence Chatbot for Mental Health
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Depression
Anxiety
Eating Disorders
Lead sponsor: Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2023-08-28
Enrollment: 210
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: The research team would like to test how efficacious an artificial intelligence chatbot is in delivering supportive behavioral interventions in populations with anxiety, depression, or eating concerns.

Detailed description: The research team has developed a deep learning-powered application that can provide support and therapeutic suggestions via natural dialogue. The chatbot is designed to be highly scalable such that it could address access issues (to address the majority of persons who do not not have access to therapy). Eventually, it is hoped this intervention can provide accessible therapy for those with anxiety, depression, and eating disorders, among other mental illnesses. The chatbot has been trained with intervention-oriented text conversations written by research assistants, employing a variety of therapeutic techniques, including cognitive-behavioral therapy. The research team hopes to test how well the chatbot can respond and aid those with mental health symptoms. The chatbot's effectiveness will be monitored based on the participants' interactions with the chatbot, as well as the participants' scores on the PHQ-9, GAD-IV, SWED, and general satisfactory questionnaires.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* We will recruit participants online using Facebook, Google Ads, Reddit, MTurk, listservs, and other online platforms.
* These individuals must meet the criteria for anxiety, depression or disordered eating, according to the PHQ-9, GADQ-IV, and SWED 3.0.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Individuals currently being treated for active suicidality (measured with C-SSRS), Bipolar I/II, and active psychosis will be excluded from the study.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Anxiety Symptoms
timeFrame: Each participant in the anxiety cohort will fill out an anxiety questionnaire to establish baseline symptoms, and they will fill out this questionnaire again after 4 and 8 weeks of using the therapy chatbot to track changes in their symptoms.
measure: Depressive Symptoms
timeFrame: Each participant in the depression cohort will fill out a questionnaire to establish baseline symptoms, and they will fill out this questionnaire again after 4 and 8 weeks of using the therapy chatbot to track changes in their symptoms.
measure: Eating Disorders Symptoms
timeFrame: Each participant in the eating disorders cohort will fill out a questionnaire to establish baseline symptoms, and they will fill out this questionnaire again after 4 and 8 weeks of using the therapy chatbot to track changes in their symptoms.
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Lebanon
country: United States
facility: Dartmouth College
state: New Hampshire
Study officials:
affiliation: Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
name: Nicholas C Jacobson, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: