A total of 500 university students will be monitored over 6 months using wearable devices and smartphone sensors.
may enable the identification of behavioral markers linked to mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
Continuous passive data collection will occur through a wearable device and smartphone app, supplemented by self-reported questionnaires.
The study aims to develop to identify students at risk of mental health symptoms.
Data collected will focus on indicators such as stress, loneliness, and emotional well-being among university students.
Simplified
INTRODUCTION: Mental health issues such as depression and anxiety are highly and disproportionally prevalent among university students. Beyond the academic rigour, stressors imposed by a new environment result in them being vulnerable to the onset and manifestation of mental health symptomatology. Leveraging smartphones and wearables for capabilities is an innovative approach for monitoring and intervening in the mental health conditions of university students. This provides a unique opportunity to collect and identify digital and behavioural biomarkers, subsequently enabling the development of to identify university students at risk.
METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This study-Brightline-will employ an observational study design over a 6-month period, recruiting 500 students from a major public university in Singapore. Passive data collection will occur continuously throughout the monitoring period through a wearable device (Fitbit Charge 6) and smartphone sensors via the Brightline app, which uses a digital phenotyping data collection platform. Active data collection will consist of self-report questionnaires to be completed at the beginning of the study and follow-up assessments at 1, 3 and 6 months after. The passive and active data collected will be analysed to identify the digital biomarkers associated with depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness and affect among university students. Predictive models of these mental health issues will also be developed.
ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This study was approved by the Nanyang Technological University Institutional Review Board (IRB-2023-894). Findings from this study will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at academic conferences.
TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT06770075.
Key numbers
500
Sample Size
Total number of university students participating in the study.
6 months
Study Duration
Length of the monitoring period for participants.
50%
Expected Prevalence Rate
Assumed prevalence rate for sample size determination.
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