RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: This study evaluates iKinnect, a linked caregiver-teen mobile app system designed to address serious adolescent conduct problems through a focus on key targets of evidence-based treatments for juvenile offending, such as parent expectation setting, monitoring, consistency, and positive reinforcement. Additional gamification and autonomy-supporting features are designed to maximize youth engagement. Digital therapeutics such as mobile apps have great potential to expand access to effective interventions, particularly for youth who engage in serious conduct problems and substance abuse, since most never receive an evidence-based treatment and few apps exist for these concerns. METHODS: This randomized clinical trial used a short-term (12 week) longitudinal design with four time points. Recruited was a U.S. national sample of teens (n = 72, age 13-17, 59.7% male, 68.1% White) receiving services for a serious conduct problem and their primary caregiver. The efficacy of iKinnect, used by parent and teen dyads, was measured against an active control condition, Life360, an app that provided mutual GPS-based location tracking to dyads. RESULTS: Across 12 weeks of app use, youth who used iKinnect showed significantly greater reductions in alcohol use, marijuana use, school delinquency, status offenses, and general delinquency than did controls. Parents who used iKinnect Reported greater improvements in structure/rule clarity and discipline consistency relative to control parents. Teen and parent iKinnect app use and acceptability ratings were high. CONCLUSIONS: Real-world use of iKinnect in future applications can, like other emerging digital health technologies, help to expand the reach of evidence-based interventions to children, youth, and families.Registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03065517).
RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: Evidence-based suicide prevention interventions directed to those seeking psychiatric crisis services for suicidality in the emergency department (ED) can reduce death by suicide and related suffering. Best practice guidelines for the care of suicidal patients in the ED exist but are not accompanied by fidelity tools for use in determining whether the interventions were applied, particularly when more than one intervention is delivered concurrently. We sought to develop a universal, treatment-agnostic Suicide Care Fidelity Checklist comprised of Key Performance Elements (KPE) across the recommended suicide-specific ED interventions. METHOD: A comprehensive review of published care standards was first conducted to determine suicide-specific ED best practice treatment domains and KPEs. Subject matter experts (SMEs) were identified for each domain. Using the Delphi Consensus method, SMEs iteratively revised and refined the KPEs within their domain until achieving KPE item consensus. RESULTS: A total of three iterations was required to obtain consensus in five of six domains: comprehensive suicide assessment, lethal means counseling, suicide crisis planning, behavioral skills training, and psychoeducation about suicidality. Consensus was not fully attained for the domain involving engagement with people with lived experience. CONCLUSIONS: We successfully identified six intervention domains and 74 KPEs across domains (60 deemed essential, and 14 deemed optional), with full consensus reached for 70 KPEs. While replication of the initial findings is required, the Suicide Care Fidelity Checklist can be used as a fidelity checklist to verify delivery of suicide-specific ED interventions.HIGHLIGHTSApplied Delphi Consensus method with suicide-specific subject matter experts.Generated a treatment-agnostic, universal set of suicide prevention KPEs for EDs.Expert-derived KPEs help real-world settings to assess suicide care fidelity.