Supporting Our Valued Adolescents (SOVA), a Social Media Website for Adolescents with Depression and/or Anxiety: Technological Feasibility, Usability, and Acceptability Study

Abstract

BackgroundSupporting Our Valued Adolescents (SOVA), a social media website for adolescents, was designed to increase mental health literacy and address negative health beliefs toward depression and/or anxiety diagnosis and treatment. This stakeholder-informed site underwent iterative user testing to evolve into its current version with daily blog posts, round-the-clock site moderation, and Web-based peer interaction to create an online support community.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to evaluate the technological feasibility (at least 100 users on the site, logging in 12 to 18 times in the first 6 weeks) and acceptability of the SOVA site determined by the System Usability Scale (SUS).MethodsAdolescents and young adults (aged 14-26 years) with a self-reported history of depressive and/or anxiety symptoms were recruited to access the research website (sova.pitt.edu). Participants were screened out if they reported active suicidality or a prior suicide attempt. Baseline survey measures included demographics, symptomatology using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 modified for adolescents (PHQ-9A) and Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED-C), and mental health treatment history. The 6-week follow-up measures taken in addition to the symptomatology, included feasibility (total number of log-ins), usability, and acceptability of SOVA using SUS.ResultsMost of the 96 participants identified as female (75% [72/96]) and white (67% [64/96]). Most participants (73% [70/96]) reported having taken prior professional psychological help. The average PHQ-9A score was 11.8 (SD 5.5), and for SCARED-C, 85% (80/94) of the participants reported a score consistent with being susceptible to a diagnosed anxiety disorder. There were 46% (41/90) of eligible users who ever logged in. Out of the total users who ever logged in, the mean of total log-ins over the entire study was 4.1 (SD 6.9). Median number of users rated the user-friendliness of the site as “good.” The average SUS score was 71.2% (SD 18.7), or a “C-grade,” which correlated to an acceptable range. The participants reported to have liked the “easy-to-understand format” and “positive, helpful atmosphere,” but they also reported a desire for greater social interaction. Iterative recruitment resulted in incremental improvements to the site.ConclusionsThe SOVA site met feasibility goals of recruiting almost 100 users and establishing acceptable usability. Subsequent interventions are planned to increase site engagement and to evaluate efficacy in increasing uptake of primary care–recommended depression and/or anxiety treatment.

Development of a social media-based intervention targeting tobacco use and heavy episodic drinking in young adults

“…Usability testing in the form of user-feedback and evaluation of key indicators of engagement and outcomes (e.g., smoking and drinking) is imperative to ensure that an intervention achieves "specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use. " [52] Usability testing has been described as an integral part of the developmental process for many digital health interventions [53][54][55].…”

Usability of Health Information Websites Designed for Adolescents: Systematic Review, Neurodevelopmental Model, and Design Brief

“…In total, 9 studies did not provide enough information to calculate mean age [5,27,28,32,34,36,37,41,46], and 1 study only provided a median age [39]. Participants were recruited from a range of sources, including middle schools, secondary schools, specialist clinics, online, youth services, those who had participated in another study, and those who had already accessed the website.…”

“…The majority of studies evaluated health information websites that were designed for specific health topics for adolescents (see Table 2). These include health information websites dedicated to weight management [24], physical activity and diet [28,30], organ transplants [34], transition from pediatric to adult health care [27], diabetes [33,38,39], juvenile idiopathic arthritis [23,44,45], human papillomavirus [42], anxiety [46], hemophilia [25,26], HIV prevention [29], depression [40,41], chronic pain [35], migraines [31], and cancer [43]. Health information websites that were developed to give general information to adolescents included a combination of health topics such as mental health, diet, drugs and alcohol, contraception, and sleep patterns.…”

“…Health information websites that were developed to give general information to adolescents included a combination of health topics such as mental health, diet, drugs and alcohol, contraception, and sleep patterns. Furthermore, 4 health information websites were described by more than 1 study [25,26,33,39-41,44,45]. Some websites were already live on the internet before usability was fully evaluated [5,27,32,33,37,39], and several health information websites were still found to be on the web at the time of this review [23,25-27,29,34,37,40,41,44,45] (see Multimedia Appendix 2).…”

A Social Media Website (Supporting Our Valued Adolescents) to Support Treatment Uptake for Adolescents With Depression and/or Anxiety and Their Parents: Protocol for a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

“…The Supporting Our Valued Adolescents (SOVA) intervention, described below, was designed to address these proposed targets by challenging health beliefs, promoting peer support, and encouraging parent-adolescent mental health discussion. Further details of the design and development of this intervention [44] and its usability testing [45] are available elsewhere.…”