Scherzer Caroline R, Ranney Megan L, Jain Shrenik, Bommaraju Satya Prateek, Patena John, Langdon Kirsten, Nimaja Evelyn, Jennings Ernestine, Beaudoin Francesca L
Department of Emergency Medicine, Rhode Island Hospital, 593 Eddy Street, Providence, RI 02903, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Rhode Island Hospital, 593 Eddy Street, Providence, RI 02903, USA.
J Psychiatr Brain Sci. 2020;5(1). doi: 10.20900/jpbs.20200001. Epub 2020 Feb 3.
The majority of individuals with Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) do not receive any formal substance use treatment. Due to limited engagement and access to traditional treatment, there is increasing evidence that patients with OUDs turn to online social platforms to access peer support and obtain health-related information about addiction and recovery. Interacting with peers before and during recovery is a key component of many evidence-based addiction recovery programs, and may improve self-efficacy and treatment engagement as well as reduce relapse. Commonly-used online social platforms are limited in utility and scalability as an adjunct to addiction treatment; lack effective content moderation (e.g., misinformed advice, maliciousness or "trolling"); and lack common security and ethical safeguards inherent to clinical care.
This present study will develop a novel, artificial-intelligence (AI) enabled, mobile treatment delivery method that fulfills the need for a robust, secure, technology-based peer support platform to support patients with OUD. Forty adults receiving outpatient buprenorphine treatment for OUD will be asked to pilot a smartphone-based mobile peer support application, the "Marigold App", for a duration of six weeks. The program will use (1) a prospective cohort study to obtain text message content and feasibility metrics, and (2) qualitative interviews to evaluate usability and acceptability of the mobile platform.
The Marigold mobile platform will allow patients to access a tailored chat support group 24/7 as a complement to different forms of clinical OUD treatment. Marigold can keep groups safe and constructive by augmenting chats with AI tools capable of understanding the emotional sentiment in messages, automatically "flagging" critical or clinically relevant content. This project will demonstrate the robustness of these AI tools by adapting them to catch OUD-specific "flags" in peer messages while also examining the adoptability of the platform itself within OUD patients.
大多数患有阿片类药物使用障碍（OUD）的人没有接受任何正规的物质使用治疗。由于参与和获得传统治疗的机会有限，越来越多的证据表明，患有OUD的患者转向在线社交平台以获得同伴支持，并获取有关成瘾和康复的健康相关信息。在康复前和康复期间与同伴互动是许多循证成瘾康复项目的关键组成部分，可能会提高自我效能感和治疗参与度，并减少复发。作为成瘾治疗的辅助手段，常用的在线社交平台在实用性和可扩展性方面存在局限；缺乏有效的内容审核（例如，错误信息、恶意或“网络攻击”）；并且缺乏临床护理所固有的常见安全和道德保障。
本研究将开发一种新颖的、基于人工智能（AI）的移动治疗交付方法，以满足对强大、安全、基于技术的同伴支持平台的需求，以支持患有OUD的患者。40名接受门诊丁丙诺啡治疗OUD的成年人将被要求试用一款基于智能手机的移动同伴支持应用程序“金盏花应用程序”，为期六周。该项目将使用（1）前瞻性队列研究来获取短信内容和可行性指标，以及（2）定性访谈来评估移动平台的可用性和可接受性。
金盏花移动平台将允许患者随时访问量身定制的聊天支持小组，作为不同形式临床OUD治疗的补充。金盏花可以通过使用能够理解信息中情感倾向的AI工具增强聊天功能，自动“标记”关键或临床相关内容，从而保持小组的安全和建设性。该项目将通过调整这些AI工具以捕捉同伴信息中特定于OUD的“标记”来证明这些AI工具的强大功能，同时还将研究该平台本身在OUD患者中的可采用性。
