Technology-based mental health solutions

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• Jockey Club TourHeart+ Project

  • Carrying on the success of the online stepped care model in the initial 3 years of the Jockey Club TourHeart Project that strived to reduce stigma, promote mental health, prevent anxiety and depression, and treat anxiety and depression among working adults, we are continuing our work in this extension project, Jockey Club TourHeart+ Project (JCTH+), to further harness the power of technology in delivering more personalized and precise mental health solutions to targeted working adults (i.e., corporate employees, teachers, health care providers, unemployed and underemployed individuals).

 

The JCTH+, funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, spans from Jan 2021 to Jan 2024. Through the AI-empowered website and mobile app of JCTH+, users can receive personalized mental health information and training. Instead of the conventional way of completing assessments and self-guided Internet-based courses, AI-assisted chatbot, intelligence coach as well as human coaches will be employed to provide personalized recommendations and feedback to our users. Webinars, offline workshops, and group therapy will also be provided to further bolster users’ mental health practice. Our aim is to weave mental health into our daily fabric of our lives.

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• JockeyClub TourHeart

  • The project aims to develop a four-tier stepped care system for mental well-being in Hong Kong in order to reduce the stigma of mental illness, raise the awareness of targeted population on mental well-being, enable the general public with skills to improve on their mental well-being through different self-care methods, and expand on the mental health service repertoire based on solid scientific evidence to meet to varied levels of needs of individuals across the mental health spectrum. The four levels include: (1) stigma reduction, (2) mental well-being promotion for the general public, (3) early identification and prevention for people who are at risk for anxiety and depression, and (4) low-intensity psychological interventions for individuals with mild to moderate anxiety and depression. Through this comprehensive, task-shifting, and innovative approach, we endeavor to reduce the stigma that the public has towards mental illness, enhance their understanding towards the importance of mental health, provide low-cost evidence-based psychological interventions that can be readily scalable in the population using digital technology, and task-shift protocol- based low intensity psychological interventions to a new sector of trained psychological well-being officers to reduce the burden of mental health professionals.

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• Yes I Can

  • ‘Yes I Can’ program, which is a tripartite collaboration among The Chinese University of Hong Kong, AXA Insurance and Oxford VR, examines the effectiveness of our new Virtual Reality (VR) therapy targeting social avoidance and investigates the application of VR technology in the realm of mental health services.  It's a pioneering trial to assess the effectiveness of Virtual Reality (VR) treatment for mental wellbeing.  ​

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• MHSR

  • 《MHSR 精神健康服務研究計劃》是一個有關階梯式及配對式精神保健服務的研究計劃 (https://mhsresearch.psy.cuhk.edu.hk/)。我們希望探討不同模式的低密度指導式自助訓練對於減輕抑鬱和/焦慮的成效。​

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• Mindful Flourishing​

  • Funded by the Health Care and Promotion Scheme, we endeavor to promote college students’ mental well-being through cultivation of mindfulness with online and offline approaches. By integrating mindfulness into daily life and living in the present, we hope students can have more inner space to explore themselves and enjoy a flourishing university life. Students who are interested in promoting mindfulness on campus can apply to become Mindful Flourishing Ambassadors. The ambassadors who have completed the training and passed the assessment can deliver mindfulness workshops to fellow schoolmates. At the same time, ambassadors are invited to use the Mindful Flourishing mobile application to maintain daily mindfulness practice.​

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• Mindwork

  • Internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy (ICBT) has been recommended by the NICE guidelines as one of the low-intensity interventions for people with depression and anxiety. Mindwork is a randomised controlled trial funded by Health and Medical Research Fund.  Mindwork aims to evaluate the efficacy of ICBT in treating working adults with depression and anxiety in Hong Kong at post-treatment and 6-month follow-up. We hypothesized that ICBT in Mindwork could better improve recovery rate and productivity than its active control group, which include greater reduction in absenteeism and presenteeism, and unperformed unpaid work.  Focusing on repetitive negative thinking, and intolerance of uncertainty, Mindwork also adopted an transdiagnoistic approach in reducing depression and anxiety symptoms.

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• Living with Heart

  • Mobile self-compassion programme for the promotion of public mental health: Randomised controlled trial

  • Self-compassion has garnered much evidence in its salutary effects on mental health, while smartphone and mobile technology has been widely applied in promoting and maintaining health in the general public. The present study makes use of the increasingly popular means of smartphone and mobile technology to promote mental health through the cultivation of self-compassion. This study proposes a randomised controlled trial to test the efficacy of a Self-Compassion Programme in promoting self-compassion, emotion regulation, and mental health, in comparison with a psychoeducation control. The study period is from April 2014 to April 2016. This study is funded by the Health and Medical Research Fund (10110221).

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• TourHeart

  • Internet-based mindfulness and rumination-focused cognitive behavioural therapy as selective prevention of anxiety and depression: A randomised controlled trial (http://www.psy.cuhk.edu.hk/tourheart/)

  • Given depression and anxiety tend to co-occur and share similar risk factors for onset and common maintenance processes, the present study developed and compared the efficacy of two Internet-based transdiagnostic training courses with online guidance, mindfulness-based training (MBT) and rumination-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (RFCBT), in reducing the risks and symptoms of depression and anxiety and preventing the incidence of depressive and anxiety disorders, in comparison with a psychoeducation control. The study period is from Sep 2015 to Feb 2018. This study is funded by the Health and Medical Research Fund (12130711).
     

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