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Remote Evaluation and Alerting for Collaborative Health (REACH) in Depression

Beyond the Clinic: Enhancing Depression Surveillance With a Digital Biomarker

Status
Recruiting
Phases
Unknown
Study type
Interventional
Source
ClinicalTrials.gov
Registry ID
NCT07174557
Enrollment
320
Registered
2025-09-16
Start date
2026-05-20
Completion date
2028-06-30
Last updated
2026-08-11

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Depression, Major Depressive Disorder

Keywords

Depression, Smartphone monitoring, Risk detection, Collaborative care

Brief summary

Researchers hope to see if the data smartphones collect continuously can be used to predict if patient's depression symptoms will return. They will do this by collecting data from patient's smartphones and comparing it to their depression symptoms. If this method is successful, researchers could develop a smartphone application to help healthcare providers better monitor patient's depression and intervene earlier if symptoms return.

Detailed description

Study phase 1: The investigators expect that participants will be in this research study for six months. Participants will be asked to download an app on their smartphone. This app will collect data from the phone's sensors. Participants will also be asked to answer some questions about their mood each month. Study phase 2: This phase of the study is randomized which means that in order to learn about the effect of the Smartphone App, half the people in this study will use it, and the other half will not. If participants decide to enroll into this research study, they will be assigned by chance to one of the following groups: Group A: Participants will be asked to download a Smartphone App. This App will collect data from the phone's sensors. Group B: Participants will have usual care. Both Groups: Participants will be asked to complete questionnaires about their mood each month.

Interventions

OTHERMoodTriggers Application

The Mood Triggers application, developed by Dr. Jacobson, will be used for collecting smartphone sensor data. This HIPAA-compliant app has been incorporated into various projects at Dartmouth, Stanford, and MGH/Harvard, with development supported by NIDA, NIMHD, NCI, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Mood Triggers app will capture a wide range of metrics, including psychomotor agitation, sleep disturbances, low behavioral activation, social contact, exposure to natural light, heart rate, heart rate variability, and screen time. The app also tracks the patient's screen time and app usage data. The Mood Triggers App will be installed on the smartphones at time of informed consent for all 120 patients enrolled in Phase 1 and for 100 clinical trial participants randomized to the "early warning system" (intervention arm) in Phase 2. Data will be collected from the Mood Triggers App starting on day of discharge from care and for 6 months post-discharge date.

Sponsors

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Lead SponsorOTHER
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)
CollaboratorNIH

Study design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE

Eligibility

Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

* Adult patients (18 years or older) * Treated for depression within Dartmouth Health collaborative care model (CoCM) sites who are discharged from CoCM without depression (PHQ-9 \< 10) * Have access to and ability to use a smartphone (Android version ≥ 6 or iOS version ≥ 11).

Exclusion criteria

* Identified as high risk due to active suicidality, psychosis, or bipolar disorder - Discharged from CoCM with ongoing depressive symptoms (PhQ-9 \> 10

Design outcomes

Primary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Monthly depression relapsedischarge, 6-months post-dischargeThe 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), a validated self-reported depression questionnaire, will be used to detect monthly depression recurrence based on past-month MoodTriggers application data. The PHQ-9 scores range from 0-27, with higher scores reflecting higher depression symptom levels. The PHQ-9 will be used to detect monthly recurrence of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD; PHQ-9 scores ≥ 10) during Phase 1 in all 120 participants. For the randomized clinical trial in Phase 2, we will capture the PHQ-9 monthly in both arms (MoodTriggers app vs. no app) for 6-months following discharge.

Secondary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Perceived benefits and barriers of depression monitoring using passive sensing data collected from mobile phones0-6 months post-dischargeA subgroup of individuals from Phase 1 will be invited and verbally consented to participate in semi-structured interviews to provide their experiences with the study's digital biomarker "early warning" system. The purpose of this interview is to identify perceived benefits and barriers of depression monitoring using passive sensing data collection from your mobile phone. The information gathered will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the Mood Trigger app in predicting symptoms of depression.

Countries

United States

Contacts

CONTACTNicholas C Jacobson, PhD
nicholas.c.jacobson@dartmouth.edu(603) 646-7037
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORNicholas C Jacobson, PhD

Dartmouth College

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Aug 12, 2026