Assessing costs of developing a digital program for training community health workers to deliver treatment for depression: A case study in rural India

Joshi, Udita; Naslund, John A.; Anand, Aditya; Tugnawat, Deepak; Vishwakarma, Ram A.; Bhan, Anant; Patel, Vikram; Lu, Chunling

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2021.114299

Cited by 18 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…However, they can influence whether development occurs, so explicit methods for deciding on resource categories to include, methods of resource use data collection and sources of unit costs should be explicitly given in any study. We used a similar approach to Joshi and colleagues who reported explicit methods to derive development cost for a digital program for training community health workers to deliver treatment for depression in rural India ( 22 ). Similarly to our study, they reported that staffing costs constituted 61% of development costs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The total cost for the development stage of the NEON Intervention was constructed with reference to a development costing checklist for a digital program for training community health workers to deliver treatment for depression ( 22 ). The costing strategy consisted of: identifying resource use categories involved in the development and delivery of the intervention; accurate measurement or estimation of resource use; and a valuation of resource use to generate overall costs ( 42 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…DHI development costs are usually incurred for content and software design, website and graphic design, digital platform development and regulatory approval processes. A recent study focusing on the development of a mental health DHI proposed a costing framework for development costs and we have applied this framework to our development costs methods ( 22 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The aim of this study is to describe, estimate, and present the associated cost components and total cost of developing and delivering the Narrative Experiences Online (NEON) Intervention, using current recommendations for costing DHIs ( 11 , 19 , 21 , 22 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Development and delivery cost of digital health technologies for mental health: Application to the Narrative Experiences Online Intervention

et al. 2022

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BackgroundThe increasing development and use of digital health interventions requires good quality costing information to inform development and commissioning choices about resource allocation decisions. The Narrative Experiences Online (NEON) Intervention is a web-application that delivers recorded mental health recovery narratives to its users. Two randomized controlled trials are testing the NEON Intervention in people with experience of psychosis (NEON) and people experiencing non-psychosis mental health problems (NEON-O).AimThis study describes and estimates the cost components and total cost of developing and delivering the NEON Intervention.Materials and methodsTotal costs for the NEON Trial (739 participants) and NEON-O Trial (1,024 participants) were estimated by: identifying resource use categories involved in intervention development and delivery; accurate measurement or estimation of resource use; and a valuation of resource use to generate overall costs, using relevant unit costs. Resource use categories were identified through consultation with literature, costing reporting standards and iterative consultation with health researchers involved in NEON Intervention development and delivery. Sensitivity analysis was used to test assumptions made.ResultsThe total cost of developing the NEON Intervention was £182,851. The largest cost components were software development (27%); Lived Experience Advisory Panel workshops (23%); coding the narratives (9%); and researchers' time to source narratives (9%). The total cost of NEON Intervention delivery during the NEON Trial was £118,663 (£349 per NEON Intervention user). In the NEON-O Trial, the total delivery cost of the NEON Intervention was £123,444 (£241 per NEON Intervention user). The largest cost components include updating the narrative collection (50%); advertising (19%); administration (14%); and software maintenance (11%). Uncertainty in the cost of administration had the largest effect on delivery cost estimates.ConclusionOur work shows that developing and delivering a digital health intervention requires expertise and time commitment from a range of personnel. Teams developing digital narrative interventions need to allocate substantial resources to curating narrative collections.Implications for practiceThis study identifies the development and delivery resource use categories of a digital health intervention to promote the consistent reporting of costs and informs future decision-making about the costs of delivering the NEON Intervention at scale.Trial registrationNEON Trial: ISRCTN11152837, registered 13 August 2018, http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN11152837. NEON-O Trial: ISRCTN63197153, registered 9 January 2020, http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN63197153.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Development and delivery cost of digital health technologies for mental health: Application to the Narrative Experiences Online Intervention

et al. 2022

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“…1. Educators can integrate traditional teaching methods when conducting digital training, which positively impacts the effectiveness of teaching and learning (Joshi et al, 2022). 2.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the impact of digital education and the role of the big data analytics course to enhance the skills and employability of engineering students

Lin

Zhang²,

Ding³

et al. 2022

Front. Psychol.

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This study aims to explore the role of digital education in the development of skills and employability for engineering students through researching the role of big data analytics courses. The empirical study proposes the hypothesis that both soft and hard skills have positive effects on human capital, individual attributes, and the career development dimensions of engineering students. This is achieved through constructing a framework of three dimensions of engineering students’ employability and two competency development dimensions of big data analytics courses. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 155 college engineering students and a structural equation model (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses. The results found that courses on big data analytics have a positive impact on engineering students’ abilities in both hard skills (p < 0.01) and soft skills (p < 0.001) dimensions, while soft skills have a more significant impact on engineering students’ employability. The study has practical and theoretical implications that further enriches the knowledge base on engineering education and broadens our understanding of the role of digitalization in enhancing the skills and employability of engineering students.

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Approaches to Virtual Care in Underserved Communities and Settings: Bridging the Behavioral Health-Care Gap

Hilty

Ahuja

Naslund

et al. 2022

Virtual Mental Health Care for Rural and Underserved Settings

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Assessing costs of developing a digital program for training community health workers to deliver treatment for depression: A case study in rural India

Cited by 18 publications

References 45 publications

Development and delivery cost of digital health technologies for mental health: Application to the Narrative Experiences Online Intervention

Development and delivery cost of digital health technologies for mental health: Application to the Narrative Experiences Online Intervention

Assessing the impact of digital education and the role of the big data analytics course to enhance the skills and employability of engineering students

Approaches to Virtual Care in Underserved Communities and Settings: Bridging the Behavioral Health-Care Gap

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