1. John Torous MD, Steven R. Chan MD MBA, Shih-Yee Marie Tan MD, Jake Behrens MD, Peter Yellowlees MD MBBS, Ladson Hinton MD, Ron Friedman MD
Smartphone & App Use By
Collecting accurate and timely information on
symptoms of psychiatric illness from patients can be
difficult. In addition, retrospective questionnaires are
known to be ineffective and lacking in accuracy.
Although paper and pencil symptom tracking diaries
are useful in tracking patient’s mood, they can be
cumbersome and often found to be incomplete. The
rapid of rise of mobile technologies, particularly
smartphones and mobile applications offer an
alternate route to assess patient’s conditions or states
in “real time” without significant patient effort or cost.
The potential for patients to use an electronic mood
tracking application on their smartphone is appealing
on many levels. First, data can be collected in real
time and real life situation outside of the clinic.
Second, data can be collected easily in seconds by
patients filling out interactive surveys. Third, data can
be encrypted and securely stored to ensure privacy.
However, the promise of mobile applications in
mental health is limited by the current limited
knowledge of the prevalence of smartphone
ownership and willingness to use mobile applications
among patients with mental health conditions. This
study's aim is to estimate prevalence of smartphone
ownership among patients with mental health
diagnoses as well as their interest in using
smartphones to monitor their mental health.
Outpatient Psychiatric Patients
An anonymous, voluntary survey of approximately 20 questions
was distributed to patients in several outpatient mental health
clinics across the United States. Study sites included a Harvard
University affiliated outpatient clinic and the Massachusetts
Mental Health Center both in Massachusetts, an outpatient clinic
at at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New
Orleans, LA, an outpatient clinic at the University of Wisconsin in
Madison, WI, and an outpatient clinic at the University of
California Davis in Sacramento, CA. The study was IRB-approved
at each respective site by the respective IRB boards. Results were
compiled and statistically analyzed with R software.
Initial results of 100 patients at the Harvard University affiliated
outpatient clinic demonstrated that 70% of patients there owned
a smartphone and over 50% of those owning a smartphone
were willing to download a mobile application to monitor
their mental health. Of note, patients expressed more interest in
using a mobile application than text messaging for monitoring
their mental health. Results from other study sites are currently
pending but will be completed shortly.
A significant percentage of mental health patients own
smartphones and actively use mobile applications. Many patients
wish to actively monitor their health conditions with smartphone
applications. Customized mobile phone applications have the
potential to serve as a new tool and technology in mental health to
help better connect, monitor, and treat patients.
OBJECTIVE / BACKGROUND METHOD RESULTS
CONCLUSION
OF PATIENTS SURVEYED AT A HARVARD UNIVERSITY-AFFILIATED
OUTPATIENT CLINIC OWNED A SMARTPHONE.70%