Open AccessFOCUS mHealth Intervention for Veterans With Serious Mental Illness in an Outpatient Department of Veterans Affairs Setting: Feasibility, Acceptability, and Usability Study
Author(s) -
Benjamin Buck,
Janelle Nguyen,
Shelan Porter,
Dror BenZeev,
Greg R. Reger
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
jmir mental health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2368-7959
DOI - 10.2196/26049
Subject(s) - mhealth , veterans affairs , psychological intervention , context (archaeology) , medicine , intervention (counseling) , usability , focus group , mental health , health care , telemedicine , nursing , psychiatry , paleontology , human–computer interaction , marketing , computer science , economics , business , biology , economic growth
Background Veterans with serious mental illnesses (SMIs) face barriers to accessing in-person evidence-based interventions that improve illness management. Mobile health (mHealth) has been demonstrated to be feasible, acceptable, effective, and engaging among individuals with SMIs in community mental health settings. mHealth for SMIs has not been tested within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Objective This study examines the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of an mHealth intervention for SMI in the context of VA outpatient care. Methods A total of 17 veterans with SMIs were enrolled in a 1-month pilot trial of FOCUS, a smartphone-based self-management intervention for SMI. At baseline and posttest, they completed measures examining symptoms and functional recovery. The participants provided qualitative feedback related to the usability and acceptability of the intervention. Results Veterans completed on an average of 85.0 (SD 96.1) interactions with FOCUS over the 1-month intervention period. They reported high satisfaction, usability, and acceptability, with nearly all participants (16/17, 94%) reporting that they would recommend the intervention to a fellow veteran. Clinicians consistently reported finding mHealth-related updates useful for informing their care. Qualitative feedback indicated that veterans thought mHealth complemented their existing VA services well and described potential opportunities to adapt FOCUS to specific subpopulations (eg, combat veterans) as well as specific delivery modalities (eg, groups). In the 1-month period, the participants experienced small improvements in self-assessed recovery, auditory hallucinations, and quality of life. Conclusions The FOCUS mHealth intervention is feasible, acceptable, and usable among veterans. Future work should develop and examine VA-specific implementation approaches of FOCUS for this population.