Researching the Effect the Mobile Mental Health Game eQuoo Has on Resilience in a Student Population.
Participate and get free access to eQuoo, The Emotional Fitness Game worth £39.99

UCL, alongside other UK universities, has become increasingly aware of rises in mental health concerns amongst its student body. Further distress and concern resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has further raised the need to support the wellbeing and mental health of students.  In response, UCL has been exploring a number of outreach and research programs on campus to find the best options for educating about mental health, as well as interventions promote wellbeing and support mental health difficulties. We hope to combine the most successful of these initiatives to create an overarching programme offering both preventative and reactive mental health support to students.

As part of this programme, we are launching a study to examine the potential of a third-party app that aims to build resilience, boost mental wellbeing, and teach psychological skills to users s. We would like to invite you to take part in a study that will explore the ability of this app to improve wellbeing. The study will last 5 weeks, and will require somewhere between 15 - 25 minutes of your time each week. The entire study will be conducted on your mobile device.

After filling out a baseline questionnaire, you will be randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups for the duration of the trial:

1. The test group which uses the app eQuoo
2. The active control group which uses the app Sanvello
3. The waitlist group with no app

A mobile mental health app named eQuoo teaching psychological concepts such as emotional bids, generalisation and reciprocity through psychoeducation, storytelling and gamification was developed and published on all application platforms. A hypothesis was postulated that using the app over a period of 5 weeks may potentially raise resilience levels, as to be examined in this study in the student population of University College London.

Any student enrolled at UCL, owns a smartphone, and who is above the age of 18 is invited to participate.

It is up to you to decide whether or not to take part.  If you do decide to take part you will be given this information sheet to keep (and be asked to sign a consent form).  You can withdraw at any time without giving a reason and without it affecting your education at UCL.' if you decide to withdraw you will be asked what you wish to happen to the data you have provided up that point.

If you decide to partake you will be sent 5 emails over 5 weeks with instructions. There will be a follow up 3 months after to close the project. The instructions will vary, depending on which study group you have randomly been assigned to. At the end of the trial we will send you a timely de-brief with information on the study outcomes and further mental health resources for your personal use.

Your answers to the questions made during this research will be used only for analysis.  No other use will be made of them without your written permission, and no one outside the study will be allowed access to the original data. No other smartphone data will be recorded. The anonymized data from the trial will be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The app in this study has been ORCA approved and is currently being used in the NHS. It has undergone and passed rigorous testing and is certified …. Although we do not expect this, it is possible that using the app and filling out the questionnaires may lead to emotional or mental distress. If you are experiencing mental stress, please report this to the study team, and we will refer you to the appropriate medical services.

If our hypothesis is supported with the findings of this study, participants may find their resilience increased, making it less likely to face mental health issues and significantly lowered their depression and anxiety scores

Your first point of contact is Silja Litvin (s.litvin@ucl.ac.uk) who is a PhD Student at Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and holds an honorary contract at UCL. Silja is also the CEO and founder of PsycApps, the third-party company that designed the app for this study. The second is Professor Pilling. Every complaint will be handled within 24-48 hours. Should they feel your complaint has not been handled to your satisfaction, you can contact the Chair of the UCL Research Ethics Committee - ethics@ucl.ac.uk

All the information that we collect about you during the course of the research will be kept strictly confidential. All data will be anonymized, and you will not be able to be identified in any ensuing reports or publications. The researchers will have access to participant email addresses in order to send them information on the study. Once a participant has been recruited to the study, there will be assigned a numerical participant ID. There will be one document that matches the participant ID and email addresses. This document will be encrypted and saved on an encrypted hard drive. All participant answers to questionnaires will be anonymized via the participant ID.

Confidentiality may be limited and conditional and the researcher has a duty of care to report to the relevant authorities possible harm/danger to the participant or others: if a participants reaches out reporting self-harm or suicidal thoughts to the point of contact as listed here, they are obliged by law to report to the relevant authorities.

There is no use of deception in this trial, you will know what trial group you have been assigned to.

The results of this study will be published in a peer reviewed scientific journal, as well as presented within a PhD thesis. All data will be anonymised and kept for further research for up to 10 years. Your person will not be able to be identified through stored data.

Notice:

The data controller for this project will be University College London (UCL). The UCL Data Protection Office provides oversight of UCL activities involving the processing of personal data, and can be contacted at data-protection@ucl.ac.uk. UCL's Data Protection Officer can also be contacted at data-protection@ucl.ac.uk.

Your personal data will be processed for the purposes outlined in this notice.

The legal basis that would be used to process your personal data will be your consent.

The legal basis used to process special category personal data will be for scientific and historical research or statistical purposes/explicit consent.

Your personal data will be processed so long as it is required for the research project.

If you are concerned about how your personal data is being processed, please contact UCL in the first instance at data-protection@ucl.ac.uk. If you remain unsatisfied, you may wish to contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). Contact details, and details of data subject rights, are available on the ICO website at: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-reform/overview-of-the-gdpr/individuals-rights/

Detail any intended recipients of personal data if not explained elsewhere, and also advise if any personal data will be transferred outside the EEA, and if so to where.

UCL

Silja Litvin, s.litvin@ucl.ac.uk

Thank you for reading this information sheet and for considering to take part in this research study. If you consent and wish to continue, please click the button below: