CompassionateUs: A randomised evaluation trial of an interactive compassionate-based digital health program on psychological wellbeing.

A compassion-based digital health program (called CompassionateUs), for adults in the general community, will be evaluated. CompassionateUs will be offered through the My Digital Health platform. People consenting to take part in the study will be randomly allocation to one of three conditions upon completion of the pre-program survey. The three conditions vary based on when program modules are released (i.e., all modules are open from first login; modules are released on a time schedule [scheduled every 4 days for the first five modules and then every 7 days for the final five modules]; modules released sequentially, following completion of the current module). The CompassionateUs program consists of 10 brief modules (i.e., 5 compassion-knowledge building and 5 compassion-skill building), delivered over 8 weeks, all designed to assist adults in the general population develop greater compassion for themselves and others and improve general wellbeing. Each module will take 10-20 minutes to read and include text, graphics, audio, video, editable forms, interactive elements (e.g., hotspots), self-check module quizzes and downloads, designed specifically for this study. To consolidate learning, participants will be asked to complete various practise activities (10 minutes per day on average). Participants will also receive automated emails (e.g., when a module is released, once they have completed a module, when scheduled program assessments are due). Modules are accessible via web, mobile or tablet devices. The CompassionateUs program is housed within the participant's ‘My Digital Health’ dashboard. My Digital Health is the parent platform that houses a variety of digital health programs. Via the participant’s dashboard, they are able to access several resources. This includes: My Dashboard, My Inbox, My Daily Monitoring, My Progress Graphs, My Timeline, My Profile and My Tutorial. It also includes a ‘Connect to Practitioner’ request button. If clicked, an Australian-based participant can request that we add their healthcare practitioner to their My Digital Health account. If the healthcare practitioner consents to participate, the healthcare practitioner is then digitally connected to the participant’s My Digital Health account. Here, each healthcare practitioner receives automatic access to the digital health program itself, the communication system and a brief healthcare practitioner digital mental health training program. Providing the participant consents, the healthcare provider can also view the participant’s progress graphs, account activity and self-monitoring data. After the digital connection has been made, it is then up to the healthcare practitioner to decide how best to utilise these features and tools. Participants will complete a pre-program survey assessment (Week 0), during program survey (Week 3 & 6), a post-program survey (Week 9) and a 3-month follow-up survey (Week 21) and they will be able to access the CompassionateUs program for the entire trial period. However, while the ‘during’, post-intervention and follow up assessments are scheduled, participants will not be able to access the program until they have completed the scheduled assessments (or after the expiry time to complete the scheduled assessment has lapsed). A random selection of participants might also be invited to participate in a brief post-program interview by telephone, instant messaging or video-chat. The interview will ask them about their experiences of using the CompassionateUs program. Participant engagement with the program will be obtained through by passive analytic data (e.g., what pages they visited and when), as well as reviewing the completion of daily mood and lifestyle event survey data and the scheduled intervention assessments. Participating healthcare practitioners may also be invited to provide feedback about their digital connection experience.