Testing the Feasibility and Outcomes of a Digital Health Support for Individuals With Schizophrenia Spectrum Mental Illnesses

General Issues The most common contributors to relapse in schizophrenia and associated mental illnesses are medication non-adherence, social isolation, and inadequate supports. Driven to a large extent by system of care shortcomings and the many challenges presented by symptoms, the impacts of these problems are profound from individual to system levels. This is a global issue, and to date technology has not been substantively leveraged in generating solutions - despite evidence of substantial uptake of relevant technologies by relevant populations. To date, there are few products on the market that address the constellation of issues outlined above. It is an area where a nuanced approach is needed as this illness is highly diverse in presentation, attended by a number of social determinants of health that greatly affect outcomes and, quite commonly, ambivalence with respect to service provider and caregiver engagement. This scenario as it exists for schizophrenia stands in sharp contrast with the many thousands of applications developed for other mental health issues.

Cellphone Based Technologies and Schizophrenia There is a small, emergent literature that is examining the feasibility and outcomes of mobile applications that address schizophrenia. Broadly, targeted mobile and online applications in areas such as cognitive remediation (brain training games) have been found feasible and do not result in any noted risks in their use and there have been promising findings in outcome studies of emergent mHealth strategies for schizophrenia of the kind tested here.

Local Work in this Area to Date

Initial mapping of key domains relevant to an app in this area has been conducted based upon the experience of the collaborators and an understanding of the relevant practice literatures. This initial draft, which might be considered a 'paper prototype', let to the identification of the following needs:

The platform would: