Optimizing treatment for depression in primary care using psychotherapy versus antidepressant medication in a low-resource setting: protocol for the OptimizeD randomized controlled trial.

Background: Psychotherapy and antidepressant medications are first-line treatments for depression, and they both have significant treatment effects on average. However, treatment response varies widely across patients, and neither approach is universally effective. Identifying the most effective treatment for each patient is critical everywhere, but particularly in low-resource settings where access to mental health care is limited.

Digital phenotyping correlates of cognitive performance in schizophrenia spectrum disorders from a longitudinal study.

Cognitive deficits across social and nonsocial domains are central to functional impairment in schizophrenia. While these deficits are traditionally assessed through neuropsychological testing, recent advancements in smartphone sensor-driven digital phenotyping offer a novel approach for continuous, real-time monitoring of daily behaviors that can be reflective of latent cognitive functioning. We examined the relationship between such digital phenotyping metrics like home-time, screen-duration, and entropy, and social and nonsocial cognitive functioning in 50 participants - 25 diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and 25 healthy comparison participants.

AI-Y: An AI Checklist for Population Ethics Across the Global Context.

Purpose Of Review: The goal of this narrative review is to introduce and apply , a structured ethical framework created to evaluate the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in public health. The review addresses key questions: How can AI be ethically assessed across global healthcare contexts and what principles are needed to ensure contextually appropriate AI use in population health.

Recent Findings: Recent research highlights a significant disconnect between AI development and ethical implementation, especially in low-resource settings.

Characterizing modifications to the mental health gap action programme (mhGAP) intervention guide during implementation in low- and middle-income countries using the framework for reporting adaptations and modifications to evidence-based interventions: a systematic review of reviews.

Background: Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) allocate a disproportionately small fraction of their healthcare budgets to mental health, leading to a treatment gap exceeding 75%. To address this disparity, the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP), aiming to integrate mental healthcare into primary and community care settings. Central to this initiative is task-sharing: empowering non-specialist healthcare providers to detect and treat mental disorders.

Optimizing Treatment for Depression in Primary Care Using Psychotherapy Versus Antidepressant Medication in a Low-Resource Setting: Protocol for the OptimizeD Randomized Controlled Trial.

Psychotherapy and antidepressant medications are first-line treatments for depression, and they both have significant treatment effects on average. However, treatment response varies widely across patients, and neither approach is universally effective. Identifying the most effective treatment for each patient is critical everywhere, but particularly in low-resource settings where access to mental health care is limited.

The Interplay Between Sleep and Safety Outcomes in the Workplace: A Scoping Review and Bibliographic Analysis of the Literature.

Occupational incidents comprising injuries and accidents remain a serious concern globally. With sleep deprivation and fatigue representing key drivers of many workplace incidents, one strategy to reduce occupational incidents is implementing effective sleep management systems. Yet, to date, there are complaints about the methodological approach in sleep-safety studies.

Task-sharing and telemedicine delivery of psychotherapy to treat perinatal depression: a pragmatic, noninferiority randomized trial.

Task-sharing and telemedicine can increase access to effective psychotherapies. Scaling Up Maternal Mental healthcare by Increasing access to Treatment (SUMMIT) is pragmatic, multisite, noninferiority, four-arm trial that tested the non-inferiority of provider (non-specialist vs. specialist providers) and modality (telemedicine vs.

Development of a digital program for training non-specialist providers to deliver a psychosocial intervention for depression: a formative study to support scaling up task-shared depression care in the United States.

Task-sharing holds promise for bridging gaps in access to mental healthcare; yet there remain significant challenges to scaling up task-sharing models. This formative study aimed to develop a digital platform for training non-specialist providers without prior experience in mental healthcare to deliver a brief psychosocial intervention for depression in community settings in Texas. A 5-step development approach was employed, consisting of: blueprinting, scripting, video production and digital content creation, uploading digital content to a Learning Management System and user testing.

Designing smartphone-based cognitive assessments for schizophrenia: Perspectives from a multisite study.

Introduction: Cognitive deficits represent a core symptom of schizophrenia and a principal contributor to illness disability, yet evaluating cognition in routine clinical settings is often not feasible as cognitive assessments take longer than a standard doctor's visit. Using smartphones to assess cognition in schizophrenia offers the advantages of convenience in that patients can complete assessments outside of the clinic, temporality in that longitudinal trends can be identified, and contextuality in that cognitive scores can be interpreted with other measures captured by the phone (e.g.

Evaluation of a Positive Psychological Intervention to Reduce Work Stress among Rural Community Health Workers in India: Results from a Randomized Pilot Study.

Unlabelled: Efforts to reduce work stress among frontline health workers in India, namely the rural Accredited Social Health Activists or 'ASHAs' (resident women, lay health workers) have predominantly emphasized on 'extrinsic' variables (e.g., financial incentives, or enhanced supervision), with little consideration of 'intrinsic' factors like the wellbeing of ASHAs themselves or building their abilities in managing work stress.

Development of a remote implementation support strategy to enhance integration of depression treatment into primary care settings in rural India.

Introduction: Contextually responsive implementation support strategies are needed to enhance the integration of mental health services into primary health care. Technical assistance is widely used as a core "capacity building" strategy, primarily for increasing the motivation and capacity of individuals (e.g.

Burnout, motivation and job satisfaction among community health workers recruited for a depression training in Madhya Pradesh, India: a cross-sectional study.

Introduction: Burnout, low motivation, and poor job satisfaction among community health workers (CHWs) have negative impacts on health workers and on patients. This study aimed to characterize levels of burnout, motivation, and job satisfaction in CHWs in Madhya Pradesh, India and to determine the relation between these levels and participant characteristics. This study can inform efforts to promote wellbeing and address stress in this population.

Adapting and deploying a digital program for training non-specialist providers on a brief psychological intervention for depression in rural Gujarat, India.

Workforce shortages represent a major bottleneck to delivering depression care, particularly in lower resource settings. This pilot study aimed to assess the acceptability and feasibility of a digital training program on developing knowledge and skills in the delivery of a brief behavioral activation intervention for depression among non-specialist providers (NSPs) in Gujarat, India. Participating NSPs, such as community health workers and other frontline providers without specialized training in mental health care, were provided access to a digital program covering the core skills and content necessary to deliver the Healthy Activity Program, an evidence-based behavioral activation intervention for depression.

Conditional cash transfers and mortality in people hospitalised with psychiatric disorders: A cohort study of the Brazilian Bolsa Família Programme.

Background: Psychiatric patients experience lower life expectancy compared to the general population. Conditional cash transfer programmes (CCTPs) have shown promise in reducing mortality rates, but their impact on psychiatric patients has been unclear. This study tests the association between being a Brazilian Bolsa Família Programme (BFP) recipient and the risk of mortality among people previously hospitalised with any psychiatric disorders.

Risk of psychiatric hospitalization in low-income youth: longitudinal findings from the 100 Million Brazilian Cohort.

Background: Youth psychiatric hospitalizations have been associated with negative outcomes, including premature death and post-discharge self-harm. Identifying risk factors for youth psychiatric hospitalization is crucial for informing prevention strategies. We aimed to evaluate the risk factors for psychiatric hospitalizations among low-income youth in Brazil.

A character-strengths based coaching intervention to improve wellbeing of rural community health workers in Madhya Pradesh, India: Protocol for a single-blind randomized controlled trial.

Background: There is scarce knowledge on the use of structured positive psychology interventions for reducing work-stress and improving wellbeing of rural community health workers in India, particularly the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) who are village-level (resident women, incentivised) lay health workers. This trial will test the effectiveness of a 'character-strengths' based coaching intervention compared to routine supervision on wellbeing ('authentic happiness') of ASHAs.

Methods: This protocol is for a single-blind, parallel group randomized controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of a five-day residential workshop focusing on the use of character-strengths and subsequent 8- to 10-week remote telephonic coaching (weekly) to individually support ASHAs to improve their wellbeing, against routine health system support.

A digital iCBT intervention for social anxiety disorder in Quebec and Ontario: protocol for a multi-phase effectiveness-implementation study.

Background: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is one of the most prevalent anxiety disorders in Canada. Viable therapy options for the treatment of SAD include CBT being delivered virtually. In Australia, an innovative internet-delivered cognitive-behavioral therapy (iCBT) program for social anxiety has been developed, implemented, and demonstrated as effective.

Digital phenotyping correlates of mobile cognitive measures in schizophrenia: A multisite global mental health feasibility trial.

Traditional cognitive assessments in schizophrenia are time-consuming and necessitate specialized training, making routine evaluation challenging. To overcome these limitations, this study investigates the feasibility and advantages of utilizing smartphone-based assessments to capture both cognitive functioning and digital phenotyping data and compare these results to gold standard measures. We conducted a secondary analysis of data from 76 individuals with schizophrenia, who were recruited across three sites (one in Boston, two in India) was conducted.

Patterns and correlates of mental healthcare utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic among individuals with pre-existing mental disorder.

How did mental healthcare utilization change during the COVID-19 pandemic period among individuals with pre-existing mental disorder? Understanding utilization patterns of these at-risk individuals and identifying those most likely to exhibit increased utilization could improve patient stratification and efficient delivery of mental health services. This study leveraged large-scale electronic health record (EHR) data to describe mental healthcare utilization patterns among individuals with pre-existing mental disorder before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and identify correlates of high mental healthcare utilization. Using EHR data from a large healthcare system in Massachusetts, we identified three "pre-existing mental disorder" groups (PMD) based on having a documented mental disorder diagnosis within the 6 months prior to the March 2020 lockdown, related to: (1) stress-related disorders (e.

Designing an App to Support Measurement-Based Peer Supervision of Frontline Health Workers Delivering Brief Psychosocial Interventions in Texas: Multimethod Study.

Background: The unmet need for mental health care affects millions of Americans. A growing body of evidence in implementation science supports the effectiveness of task sharing in the delivery of brief psychosocial interventions. The digitization of training and processes supporting supervision can rapidly scale up task-shared interventions and enable frontline health workers (FLWs) to learn, master, and deliver interventions with quality and support.

Stress Alleviation Methods for community-Based Health ActiVists (SAMBHAV): Development of a digital program for stress reduction for community health workers in rural India.

Background: Community health workers (CHWs) face high levels of stress (both professional and personal) and risk of burnout, highlighting the need for efforts to promote their mental health and well-being. This study seeks to develop a digital stress reduction program for CHWs in rural India.

Methods: A stepwise design process was employed to adapt and digitize the evidence-based World Health Organization's Self-Help Plus (SH+) intervention for addressing psychological distress among CHWs in Madhya Pradesh, India.

An Active Model of Research Translation for the General Public: Content Analysis of a YouTube-Based Health Podcast.

Background: Online health information seeking is changing the way people engage with health care and the health system. Recent changes in practices related to seeking, accessing, and disseminating scientific research, and in particular health information, have enabled a high level of user engagement.

Objective: This study aims to examine an innovative model of research translation, The Huberman Lab Podcast (HLP), developed by Andrew Huberman, Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at the Stanford School of Medicine.