Background Depression impacts the lives of a large number of university students. Mobile-based therapy chatbots are increasingly being used to help young adults who suffer from depression. However, previous trials have short follow-up periods. Evidence of effectiveness in pragmatic conditions are still in lack. Objective This study aimed to compare chatbot therapy to bibliotherapy, which is a widely accepted and proven-useful self-help psychological intervention. The main objective of this study is to add to the evidence of effectiveness for chatbot therapy as a convenient, affordable, interactive self-help intervention for depression. Methods An unblinded randomized controlled trial with 83 university students was conducted. The participants were randomly assigned to either a chatbot test group (n = 41) to receive a newly developed chatbot-delivered intervention, or a bibliotherapy control group (n = 42) to receive a minimal level of bibliotherapy. A set of questionnaires was implemented as measurements of clinical variables at baseline and every 4 weeks for a period of 16 weeks, which included the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7), the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS). The Client Satisfaction Questionnaire-8 (CSQ-8) and the Working Alliance Inventory-Short Revised (WAI-SR) were used to measure satisfaction and therapeutic alliance after the intervention. Participants' self-reported adherence and feedback on the therapy chatbot were also collected. Results Participants were all university students (undergraduate students (n = 31), postgraduate students (n = 52)). They were between 19 and 28 years old (mean = 23.08, standard deviation (SD) = 1.76) and 55.42% (46/83) female. 24.07% (20/83) participants were lost to follow-up. No significant group difference was found at baseline. In the intention-to-treat analysis, individuals in the chatbot test group showed a significant reduction in the PHQ-9 scores (F = 22.89; P < 0.01) and the GAD-7 scores (F = 5.37; P = 0.02). Follow-up analysis of completers suggested that the reduction of anxiety was significant only in the first 4 weeks. The WAI-SR scores in the chatbot group were higher compared to the bibliotherapy group ( t = 7.29; P < 0.01). User feedback showed that process factors were more influential than the content factors. Conclusions The chatbot-delivered self-help depression intervention was proven to be superior to the minimal level of bibliotherapy in terms of reduction on depression, anxiety, and therapeutic alliance achieved with participants.

Zn Metal Anodes Inspired by the industrial steel pipeline anti‐corrosion strategy, in article number 2202603, Ruiping Liu, Peng Han, Hong Jin Fan and co‐workers employ a compounding corrosion inhibitor (CCI) to protect Zn metal surfaces. Spontaneous adsorption of the CCI on the Zn surface via Zn‐O bonding constructs a uniform organic layer that allows Zn ion conduction but prevents H2O diffusion.

The progress of aqueous zinc batteries (AZBs) is limited by the poor cycling life due to Zn anode instability, including dendrite growth, surface corrosion, and passivation. Inspired by the anti‐corrosion strategy of steel industry, a compounding corrosion inhibitor (CCI) is employed as the electrolyte additive for Zn metal anode protection. It is shown that CCI can spontaneously generate a uniform and ≈30 nm thick solid‐electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer on Zn anode with a strong adhesion via ZnO bonding. This SEI layer efficiently prohibits water corrosion and guides homogeneous Zn deposition without obvious dendrite formation. This enables reversible Zn deposition and dissolution for over 1100 h under the condition of 1 mA cm−2 and 1 mAh cm−2 in symmetric cells. The Zn‐MnO2 full cells with CCI‐modified electrolyte deliver an ultralow capacity decay rate (0.013% per cycle) at 0.5 A g−1 over 1000 cycles. Such an innovative strategy paves a low‐cost way to achieve AZBs with long lifespan.

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