Mobile app combined with face-to-face therapy helps people with psychosis
Face-to-face and mobile therapy reduces paranoia in people with psychosis, according to new NIHR-supported research.
Therapy programme SlowMo has been designed to help patients notice and record unhelpful thinking patterns in their daily life and provide immediate strategies to manage distress in the moment.
The ‘SlowMo trial: a digital therapy for people who fear harm from others’ recruited 362 people with psychosis from community mental health trusts, including 60 from Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.
All received their usual treatment (including drugs, health worker contact and psychiatrist appointments) and half were randomly allocated to also receive eight SlowMo therapy sessions and access to the mobile app.
Therapists taught participants how to use the technology which they then practiced in real-life settings such as busy shops and buses.
The study found patients given the therapy had reduced worry, slower thinking and improved confidence, wellbeing and quality of life at the end of the six month programme.
Researchers are now revising the mobile app to be used on all devices and are hoping to study how best to roll the therapy out more widely.
Read more on the NIHR Evidence website.
