ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2023
Patterns of engagement in a digital mental health service during COVID-19: a cohort study for children and young people.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Effectiveness, Facilitators, and Barriers of Digital Mental Health Services for First Nations People in Australia: Systematic Scoping Review.Interactive journal of medical research · 2026Review
- Effectiveness, facilitators and barriers of digital mental health services for First Nations Peoples in Australia: A systematic scoping review.Interactive journal of medical research · 2025Article
- Developing a Machine Learning-Based Automated Patient Engagement Estimator for Telehealth: Algorithm Development and Validation Study.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Young People's Barriers and Facilitators of Engagement with Web-Based Mental Health Interventions for Anxiety and Depression: A Qualitative Study.The patient · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic increased public use of digital mental health technologies. However, little is known about changes in user engagement with these platforms during the pandemic. This study aims to assess engagement changes with a digital mental healthcare service during COVID-19. Methods: A cohort study based on routinely collected service usage data from a digital mental health support service in the United Kingdom. Returning users aged 14-25 years that interacted for a maximum of two months were included. The study population was divided into pre-COVID and COVID cohorts. Demographic and usage information between cohorts were compared and usage clusters were identified within each cohort. Differences were tested using Chi-squared, two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests and logit regressions. Results: Of the 624,103 users who joined the service between May 1, 2019, and October 1, 2021, 18,889 (32.81%) met the inclusion criteria: 5,048 in the pre-COVID cohort and 13,841 in the COVID cohort. The COVID cohort wrote more journals; maintained the same focus on messaging practitioners, posting discussions, commenting on posts, and having booked chats; and engaged less in writing journals, setting personal goals, posting articles, and having Discussion: Our study identified changes in user activity and engagement behavior within a digital mental healthcare service during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings suggest that usage patterns within digital mental health services may be susceptible to change in response to external events such as a pandemic. Continuous monitoring of engagement patterns is important for informed design and personalized interventions.
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