Perceived Stress, Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety
Conditions
Keywords
Psychological Wellbeing, Digital Mental Health, Artificial Intelligence, College Students, Elomia
Brief summary
This study is testing the acceptability and efficacy of an AI enabled mental health chatbot (Elomia) as a resource of college student wellness.
Detailed description
Elomia is a generative AI program that can respond to text users type in with unique responses that are designed to address therapeutic targets like stress, anxiety, procrastination, feeling overwhelmed and so on. Elomia was trained by real therapists with expertise in cognitive-behavioral therapy who responded to many different real people typing about their concerns. Thus, Elomia can suggest a number of different evidence based therapeutic strategies and can help the user process negative feelings, think through problems, plan solutions, and trouble shoot things that might get in the way of implementing those strategies. Elomia's arsenal includes: * exercises for calming; * exercises for falling asleep; * grounding techniques; * exercises to reduce anxiety; * breathing exercises; * exercises to improve self-esteem. The algorithm determines the user's need for one or another type of help while communicating with the chatbot and suggests an exercise to ease their emotional state. Elomia is not a substitute for professional care, and will detect when a person needs something more than a chatbot and will suggest connecting with other resources. More information about Elomia can be found via this website: https://elomia.com/ The ultimate goal of this study is to explore whether a mental health chatbot is acceptable and can improve symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and promote general psychological well-being in college students. The investigators will compare Elomia to a curated collection of digital wellness resources that are typically provided to students at our University.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALAI enabled wellness chatbot
Elomia uses generative AI to respond to user input about psychological stress and distress. It was trained on the responses of real therapists with expertise in cognitive-behavioral therapy. It provides an array of wellness interventions including exercises for calming; • exercises for falling asleep; • grounding techniques; • exercises to reduce anxiety; • breathing exercises; • exercises to improve self-esteem.
BEHAVIORALPenn Digital Wellness Resources
This active control intervention consists of a variety of digital wellness and stress management resources that are freely available to all Penn students.
Sponsors
University of Pennsylvania
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
CROSSOVER
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. * At least 18 years of age.
Exclusion criteria
\* Severe depression or suicidality as indicated by Beck Depression Inventory score of \>= 30, and/or a score of 2 or 3 on the Item (the suicide item) of the Beck Depression Inventory
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Beck Depression Inventory | Baseline and 4 week follow-up | Self-report inventory of depressive symptoms Scores range from 0 to 63. Higher scores indicate more severe (worse) depressive symptoms. |
| GAD 7 | Baseline and 4 week follow-up | Self-report inventory of symptoms of anxiety. Scores range from 0 to 21. Higher scores indicate more severe (worse) symptoms of anxiety. |
| Perceived Stress Scale | Baseline and 4 week follow-up | Self-report questionnaire of perceived stress. Scores range from 0 to 40. Higher scores indicate more severe (worse) perceived stress. |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed