Abstract
Background: With the growing ubiquity of smartphones and wearable devices, there is an increased potential of collecting passive sensing data in mobile health. Passive data such as physical activity, Global Positioning System (GPS), interpersonal proximity, and audio recordingscan provide valuable insight into the lives of individuals. In mental health, these insights can illuminate behavioral patterns, creating exciting opportunities for mental health service providers and their clients to support pattern recognition and problem identification outside of formal sessions. In the Sensing Technologies for Maternal Depression Treatment in Low Resource Settings (StandStrong) project, our aim was to build an mHealth application to facilitate the delivery of psychological treatments by lay counselors caring for adolescent mothers with depression in Nepal. Methods: This paper describes the development of the StandStrong platform comprising the StandStrong Counselor application, and a cloud-based processing system, which can incorporate any tool that generates passive sensing data. We developed the StandStrong Counselor application that visualized passively collected GPS, proximity, and activity data. In the app, GPS data displays as heat maps, proximity data as charts showing the mother and child together or apart, and mothers' activities as activity charts. Lay counselors can use the StandStrong application during counseling sessions to discuss mothers' behavioral patterns and clinical progress over the course of a five-week counseling intervention. Achievement Awards based on collected data can also be automatically generated and sent to mothers. Additionally, messages can be sent from counselors to mother's personal phones through the StandStrong platform. Discussion: The StandStrong platform has the potential to improve the quality and effectiveness of psychological services delivered by non-specialists in diverse global settings.
Highlights
New data collection techniques employing mobile technology are being explored worldwide to identify acceptable and safe ways of understanding human behavior that are non-invasive and do not interfere with daily activities
Any further responses from the reviewers can be found at the end of the article that we developed the Sensing Technologies for Maternal Depression Treatment in Low Resource Settings (StandStrong) application for use with android smartphones
Implementation Prior to the study, we developed an approach to capture passive sensing data that could be used by StandStrong platform
Summary
New data collection techniques employing mobile technology are being explored worldwide to identify acceptable and safe ways of understanding human behavior that are non-invasive and do not interfere with daily activities. Passive sensing data collection can change this because information on physical activity, interpersonal interactions, sleep, movement within one’s community, and other behavioral indicators of improving or worsening mental health status can be recorded. If this information can be unobtrusively and confidentially collected and shared with mental health workers, treatment providers can tailor treatment to individual clients’ needs and contexts. With the growing ubiquity of smartphones and wearable devices, there is an increased potential of collecting passive sensing data in mobile health Passive data such as physical activity, Global Positioning System (GPS), interpersonal proximity, and audio recordings can provide valuable insight into the lives of individuals. Lay counselors can use the StandStrong application during counseling version 2
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