Co-designing Adaptations of a Digital Mental Health Intervention (Wysa) for Adolescent Girls With Anxiety or Depression in Rural India

Identifying Barriers and Enablers to Co-Design Adaptations of a Digital Mental Health Intervention (Wysa) for Adolescent Girls in Low Resource Settings in Uttar Pradesh, India

The goal of this study is to culturally and contextually adapt Wysa, an evidence-based AI-powered digital mental health intervention (DMHI), for adolescent girls (ages 13-18) with symptoms of anxiety and/or depression in rural Uttar Pradesh, India.

More specifically, the aims of this study are to (i) explore key barriers and facilitators to adoption, engagement, and usability of a digital mental health intervention (Wysa) in this setting, and to (ii) co-design contextually appropriate app adaptations and implementation strategies in collaboration with adolescent girls, their parents/guardians, and community stakeholders. At the end of this study, we would have co-developed a roadmap of potential adaptations to Wysa with implementation strategies to iteratively test and develop during the next phases of the study.

STUDY OBJECTIVES

Primary Objective:

To develop a stakeholder-endorsed roadmap of Wysa app adaptations and implementation strategies to guide the next phases of the project, ensuring that Wysa is accessible, culturally appropriate, and responsive to the needs of adolescent girls in rural Uttar Pradesh, India.

METHODS

Recruitment Procedures:

The study will be conducted across the 5 districts of Bahraich, Barabanki, Hardoi, Lucknow, and Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh.

One-on-one or group Awareness sessions will be conducted in Hindi and/or English (based on their preference) to recruit community stakeholders, adolescent girls, and parents/ guardians in each district. All communication will be age-appropriate and emphasize voluntary participation and confidentiality. The goal of the awareness activities is to build culturally relevant mental health understanding, provide clear study information for informed participation, and allow individuals to reflect on their experiences and interests.

Study Activities:

This study is a sequential study with 122-179 participants and will be conducted in 3 phases. Quota-based purposive sampling will be utilized to select adolescent girls in each district (N=60-90). Further, parents/ guardians of participating adolescents in each district (N=35-50), key community stakeholders in each district (N=25-35); and 2-4 decision makers will be selected using a targeting purposive sampling criteria. Data collection methods include participatory co-design focus group workshops and supplementary interviews, rapid ethnography, and Delphi surveys.

All selected participants will receive access to versions of Wysa to try out before the participatory workshops begin. Participatory workshops will be conducted seperately with adolescent girls, parents/ guardians of adolescent girl participants, and key community stakeholders to identify the barriers and enablers to adoption and engagement of Wysa app. Additionally, semi-structured individual interviews with a subset of adolescent girl participants will be conducted to further explore their in-depth perspectives. Next, Two rounds of Delphi surveys will be conducted in a participatory workshop a mixed-group of purposively sampled participants to prioritise and rate the identified barriers that have emerged from the previous phase of the participatory workshops and corresponding strategies against the APEASE criteria. Lastly, a final adaptation roadmap of key barriers to address and solutions to implement will be developed in a participatory workshop with a purposively sampled mixed sub-group of 18-24 participants.

ADOLESCENTS:

Inclusion Criteria:

• Sex: girls
• Marital status: Unmarried
• Are between 13-18 years of age
• Residing in the selected villages of Uttar Pradesh, India.
• Have elevated anxiety and/or depressive symptoms on the RCADS-25.
• Have access to a mobile phone (at least 1 mobile phone within the family).
• Provide assent/ consent to participate, along with guardian consent for minors.

Adolescents Exclusion Criteria:

• Adolescent girls who have difficulties that would prevent them from actively participating in workshop activities (e.g. with memory or comprehension, indications of psychoses)
• Are currently or have been in the past a girl icon in the Milaan Foundation Girl Icon program

PARENTS/GUARDIANS:

1. Inclusion Criteria

   • Are guardians or caregivers of a participating adolescent girl.
   • Currently reside in Uttar Pradesh
   • Provide informed consent to participate.

2. Exclusion Criteria ● They have difficulties that would prevent them from actively participating in workshop activities (e.g. with memory or comprehension, indications of psychoses).

COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS & DECISION MAKERS

1. Inclusion criteria

   • Contribute to and influence local health related-decisions or services.
   • Provide informed consent to participate.

2. Exclusion Criteria ● Stakeholders who have difficulties that would prevent them from actively participating in workshop activities (e.g. with memory or comprehension, indications of psychoses)