Contemporary performance and accessibility are features that enable mobile devices to be increasingly beneficial in the context of optimizing the treatment of psychiatric disorders. Smartphones have the potential to effectively support psychotherapeutic interventions among adolescents and young adults who require them. In the present study, the use and subjective influence of a smartphone app with content from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) was investigated among transitional age youth (TAY) with borderline personality disorder, focusing on suicidality and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), in a natural setting. A longitudinal qualitative approach was used by means of individual semi-structured interviews, where participants were asked about their experiences and associated emotions before and after a testing period of 30 days. A total of 13 TAY with a diagnosed borderline personality disorder between the ages of 18 and 23 were included. Six overarching themes were identified through qualitative text analysis: (1) experiences with DBT skills, (2) phenomenon of self-harm, (3) feelings connected with self-harm, (4) dealing with disorder-specific symptoms, (5) prevention of self-harm, and (6) attitude toward skills apps. In general, the provision of an app with DBT content achieved a positive response among participants. Despite a small change in the perception of suicidality and NSSI, participants could imagine its benefits by integrating their use of the app as a supportive measure for personal psychotherapy sessions.
People experiencing homelessness (PEH) face a disproportionately high prevalence of adverse mental health outcomes compared with the non-homeless population and are known to utilize primary healthcare services less frequently while seeking help in emergency care facilities. Given that primary health services are more efficient and cost-saving, services with a focus on mental health that are co-designed with the participation of users can tackle this problem. Hence, we aimed to synthesize the current evidence of such interventions to assess and summarize the characteristics and effectiveness of co-designed primary mental healthcare services geared towards adult PEH. Out of a total of 10,428 identified records, four articles were found to be eligible to be included in this review. Our findings show that co-designed interventions positively impacted PEH’s mental health and housing situation or reduced hospital and emergency department admissions and increased primary care utilization. Therefore, co-designed mental health interventions appear a promising way of providing PEH with continued access to primary mental healthcare. However, as co-designed mental health interventions for PEH can improve overall mental health, quality of life, housing, and acute service utilization, more research is needed.
Beyond CANCERLESS: Building up strategies to guarantee the scalability and transferability of the Health Navigator Model to real-life settings across Europe.
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