Text4Hope: Receiving Daily Supportive Text Messages for 3 Months During the COVID-19 Pandemic Reduces Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

Agyapong, Vincent Israel Opoku; Hrabok, Marianne; Shalaby, Reham; Vuong, Wesley; Noble, Jasmine M.; Gusnowski, April; Mrklas, Kelly; Li, Daniel; Urichuck, Liana; Snaterse, Mark; Surood, Shireen; Cao, Bo; Li, Xinmin; Greiner, Russell; Greenshaw, Andrew J.

doi:10.1017/dmp.2021.27

Cited by 54 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The majority of participants in this study were female (63.5%). This trend was observed in other research with similar intervention mechanisms (31,74,75). Gender plays a role as a significant determinant of mental health (76).…”

Section: Engagementsupporting

confidence: 82%

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Text4Support Mobile-Based Programming for Individuals Accessing Addictions and Mental Health Services—Retroactive Program Analysis at Baseline, 12 Weeks, and 6 Months

et al. 2021

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Objective: Where traditional approaches fall short, widely accessible and accepted, yet under leveraged, digital technologies such as text messaging present novel opportunities to solve a range of health care solutions. The following provides a preliminary analysis of the Text4Support program, a text-messaging intervention using the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy, which seeks to support the health and well-being of individuals seeking support for addiction or mental health concerns. The goal of this study was to assess whether the Text4Support program improved the perceived overall mental well-being of participants.Methods: The evaluation analyzes survey responses of individuals who were enrolled in the Text4Support program beginning in July 2019, who had completed the 6-months program by May 2020. Participants were asked to provide responses to three surveys during their time in the program—at baseline, 12-weeks and 6-months, which included questions documenting demographic information, general satisfaction with the program, and a participants' level of “global distress” through use of the Clinical Outcomes Routine Evaluation System (CORE-10)—a validated brief 10-item assessment and outcome measurement tool used to assess conditions including anxiety, depression, physical problems, and risk to self.Results and Conclusions: This data set did not include a large enough sample of participants to reach statistical significance. Nevertheless, the study provides some preliminary analysis, and identifies opportunities for the future analysis and research.

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Section: Engagementsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…It is possible that females are more likely to subscribe to text-based support services or to complete online surveys. In the user satisfaction surveys for the Text4Mood and Text4Hope programs, over 80% of survey respondents were female (31,74,75).…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Text4Support Mobile-Based Programming for Individuals Accessing Addictions and Mental Health Services—Retroactive Program Analysis at Baseline, 12 Weeks, and 6 Months

et al. 2021

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“…In Canada, Agyapong et al (138) launched a daily supportive SMS text messaging program "Text4Hope" to test the changes in the level of stress, anxiety, and depression of subscribers after 6 weeks of exposure to the daily supportive SMS text messages during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results indicated that at the 6-week and 3month time points, there was a statistically significant fall in mean score on the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire and the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) (138)(139)(140). Similar results could also be found in another study carried out by Agyapong et al (141).…”

Section: Before and During Disaster: Anticipating And Preparing For Disasterssupporting

confidence: 81%

“…Agyapong et al (139,140) This study describes the changes in the stress, anxiety, and depression levels of subscribers to the Text4Hope program after 3rd month of exposure to daily supportive SMS text messages.…”

Section: References Study Aims Methods Main Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Social Determinants in Mental Health and Resilience After Disasters: Implications for Public Health Policy and Practice

Mao

Agyapong

2021

Front. Public Health

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In this general literature review, we will explore the impacts and contribution of social determinants to mental health and resiliency following both natural and man-made disasters. Natural disasters, such as wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes, as well as man-made disasters, such as civil wars, have been known to inflict significant damage to the mental health of the victims. In this paper, we mainly explore some most studied vulnerability and protective social determinant factors such as gender, age, ethnicity, socials support and socioeconomic status for the mental health and resiliency in survivors of such disasters. Several other possible factors such as previous trauma, childhood abuse, family psychiatric history, and subsequent life stress that were explored by some studies were also discussed. We conducted a literature search in major scientific databases, using keywords such as: mental health, social determinants, disasters, wildfires, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, and resilience. We discuss the implications for public health policy and practice.

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“…In another study, adequacy of living space, housing stability and housing satisfaction were significantly associated with a high prevalence of depression [ 72 ]. This reaffirms that housing is a key social determinant of mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 73 ]. This notwithstanding, housing status did not independently predict depression in this study when other factors were controlled for in the regression model.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

Prevalence and Correlates of Likely Major Depressive Disorder among the Adult Population in Ghana during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Adu

Wallace

Lartey

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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Background: Emerging research suggests that the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and associated public health restrictions have caused psychological distress in many contexts. In order for public health authorities and policy makers to effectively address the psychological distress associated with the pandemic, it is important to determine the prevalence and correlates of mental disorders, including depression. Objectives: We aimed to determine the prevalence, and demographic, social, clinical and other COVID-19 related correlates of major depressive disorder symptoms among the general population in Ghana during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: The study was a cross-sectional survey using online data collection methods. The survey assessed demographic, social and clinical variables as well as COVID-19 related variables. Major depressive disorder symptoms were assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. The survey link was distributed primarily through WhatsApp-based platforms. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The overall prevalence of likely MDD symptoms among the sample population was 12.3%. Variables such as employment, loss of jobs during the pandemic and rate of exposure to COVID-related news were independently and significantly associated with the likelihood that respondents had likely MDD. Variables such as gender, relationship, housing status and having a family member or friend who was sick from COVID-19 were not independently significantly associated with the likelihood that respondents had likely MDD, when all other factors in the model were controlled. Conclusion: This study has identified the prevalence and correlates of depression symptoms in Ghana during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is the urgent need for mental health policy makers and the government of Ghana to have policies in place to alleviate the potential threat to the mental health of the population.

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Text4Hope: Receiving Daily Supportive Text Messages for 3 Months During the COVID-19 Pandemic Reduces Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

Cited by 54 publications

References 17 publications

Text4Support Mobile-Based Programming for Individuals Accessing Addictions and Mental Health Services—Retroactive Program Analysis at Baseline, 12 Weeks, and 6 Months

Text4Support Mobile-Based Programming for Individuals Accessing Addictions and Mental Health Services—Retroactive Program Analysis at Baseline, 12 Weeks, and 6 Months

The Role of Social Determinants in Mental Health and Resilience After Disasters: Implications for Public Health Policy and Practice

Prevalence and Correlates of Likely Major Depressive Disorder among the Adult Population in Ghana during the COVID-19 Pandemic

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