Implementation of ACT in Daily Life

ended

Mental health problems constitute a major individual, family and public health concern, affecting up to 30% of the population. Yet, both pharmacological and psychological interventions only reach modest effect sizes. There is a need for new and better personalised interventions. In my ERC 'INTERACT' project, we adopted a mobile Health (mHealth) approach for the treatment of psychotic disorder. We developed ACT-DL (Acceptance and Commitment in Daily Life), an app that complement face-to-face ACT sessions with ACT exercises in real-life, guiding individuals in the application of ACT in real-time. This mHealth approach a) extends the therapy beyond the clinical setting into real life, b) makes therapy more widely available, and c) provides therapy at specific moments of need. The problem that remains to be addressed in this Proof-of-Concept project is to bring ACT-DL to the clinical market. In IMPACT, we aim to transform the research app into a clinical ACT-DL app that can be implemented in a naturalistic clinical setting. In order to do that, we will: 1) adapt the ACT-DL app according to the feedback of the clinicians so that it reaches the flexibility needed in clinical practice, 2) develop an implementation strategy plan focusing on integration of ACT-DL in the existing health care infrastructure (data safety, data privacy, data integration and long-term sustainability) and on clinical uptake by clinicians, 3) run an implementation pilot to test acceptability, feasibility and generalisability, and 4) develop a business model. The implementation of ACT-DL in the naturalistic clinical setting will have clear societal and economic impact as it will improve the effectivity of treatment while we give patients a tool to help themselves. Furthermore, as very little mHealth approaches have been integrated in the clinical pathways of care within psychiatry, it will inform policy makers on the further development of mHealth approaches in this field.