Manage Your Life Online (‘MYLO’): A co-designed artificial therapist to support youth mental health
Aimee-Rose Wrightson-Hester1,2,9, Georgia Anderson10, Joel Dunstan11, Peter McEvoy1,12,9, Christopher Sutton7, Bronwyn Myers1,3,4, Sarah Egan1,9, Sara Tai8, Melanie Johnston-Hollitt11, Wai Chen1,5,13,14, Tom Gedeon6, Warren Mansell1,91Curtin enAble Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia2School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Western Australia, Australia3Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Parow, South Africa4Division of Addiction Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa5Mental Health Service, Fiona Stanley Hospital, Perth, Western Australia, Australia6Optus-Curtin Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, School of Electronic Engineering, Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia7Centre for Biostatistics, School of Health Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, England, United Kingdom8Division of Psychology and Mental Health, School of Health Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, England, United Kingdom9Discipline of Psychology, School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia10Mental Health Commission of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia11Curtin Institute of Computation, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia12Centre for Clinical Interventions, North Metropolitan Health Service, Nedlands, Western Australia, Australia13Curtin Medical School, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia14Division of Research and Innovation, Naresuan University, Phitsanulok, Thailand
Abstract
There is a growing shortfall in availability of youth mental health services. Mental health chatbots are a highly scalable way to address this gap. Manage Your Life Online (‘MYLO’) is an artificially intelligent chatbot that uses curious questioning to support the user’s sustained awareness and exploration of their current problems. We undertook an FHRI funded project to co-design and assess the feasibility and acceptability of a progressive web application version of MYLO tailored to suit the young people of Western Australia. For the co-design phase, we engaged in an iterative process with a youth advisory committee of 7 young people with experience of anxiety and/or depression over 4 months. To assess MYLO’s feasibility and acceptability we recruited 13 young people who tested MYLO, completed surveys including clinical outcomes and acceptability measures, and attended a focus group or interview. Most participants were positive about their experience of using MYLO and would recommend MYLO to others. Participants enjoyed the interface, found it easy to use, and rated it as acceptable on a system usability scale. We found a large effect size decrease in participants’ problem-related distress and a medium effect size increase in their self-reported tendency to resolve goal conflicts (the proposed mechanism of change). Initial outcomes suggest MYLO has the potential to support young people’s mental health and help them resolve their problems. We aim to establish whether using MYLO leads to meaningful reductions in symptoms of depression and anxiety by conducting a randomised controlled evaluation trial.
Biography
Aimee-Rose Wrightson-Hester is a Research Assistant at the Curtin enAble Institute and a PhD Candidate in psychology at Edith Cowan University. She is currently working with Professor Warren Mansell to develop and test the effectiveness of Manage Your Life Online (MYLO) an artificially-intelligent chatbot that uses the principles of Method of Levels therapy to support people’s mental health. Her PhD focuses on sexual behaviour in nightlife settings and other areas of interest include sexual violence, gender differences, and social norms.