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Apps developed for bipolar disorder (BD) allow a sense of autonomy and self‐regulation whilst monitoring for early warning signs indicative of a relapse. C.A.L.M BD was specifically co‐designed and co‐produced with young people (16–25 years) living with BD, their family members, clinicians, researchers in human–computer interaction and an app development company to address the current lack of such technology for this age range. The prototype app tracked mood, and provided young people with the instant ability to monitor mood trends and use lifeline functionality when in crisis. The evaluation of the app demonstrated that it successfully engaged participants and provided insight to an effective way of iteratively designing an app. The future development of this app could improve outcomes for young people living with BD, however, needs to be evaluated rigorously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Electronic self-report mood monitoring tools for individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) are rapidly emerging and predominately employ predefined symptom-based questions. Allowing individuals to additionally choose what they monitor in relation to their BD offers the unique opportunity to capture and gain a deeper insight into patient priorities in this context.Methods: In addition to monitoring mood symptoms with two standardised self-rated questionnaires, 308 individuals with BD participating in the Bipolar Disorder Research Network True Colours electronic mood-monitoring tool for research chose to create and complete additional personalised questions. A content analysis approach was used to analyse the content of these questions.Results: 35 categories were created based on the personalised questions with the most common being physical activity and exercise, anxiety and panic, sleep and coping/stress levels. The categories were grouped into six overarching themes 1) mental health; 2) behaviour and level of functioning; 3) physical wellbeing; 4) health behaviours; 5) active self-management; and, 6) interpersonal.Limitations: The average age of the sample was around 50 years meaning our findings may not be generalisable to younger individuals with BD.Conclusions: Aspects of BD important to patients in relation to longitudinal monitoring extend well beyond mood symptoms, highlighting the limitations of solely relying on standardised questions/mood rating scales based on symptoms primarily used for diagnosis. Additional symptoms and aspects of life not necessarily useful diagnostically for BD may be more important for individuals themselves to monitor and have more meaning in capturing their own experience of changes in BD severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Electronic longitudinal mood monitoring has been shown to be acceptable to patients with affective disorders within clinical settings, but its use in large-scale research has not yet been established.Methods: Using both postal and email invitations, we invited 4080 past research participants with affective disorders who were recruited into the Bipolar Disorder Research Network (BDRN) over a 10 year period to participate in online weekly mood monitoring. In addition, since January 2015 we have invited all newly recruited BDRN research participants to participate in mood monitoring at the point they were recruited into BDRN.Results: Online mood monitoring uptake among past participants was 20%, and among new participants to date was 46% with participants recruited over the last year most likely to register (61%). More than 90% mood monitoring participants engaged for at least one month, with mean engagement period greater than one year (58 weeks) and maximum engagement for longer than three years (165 weeks). There were no significant differences in the proportion of past and new BDRN participants providing data for at least 4 weeks (91%, 92% respectively), 3 months (78%, 82%), 6 months (65%, 54%) or one year (51%, 44%).Limitations: Our experiences with recruiting participants for electronic prospective mood monitoring may not necessarily generalise fully to research situations that are very different from those we describe.Conclusions: Large-scale electronic longitudinal mood monitoring in affective disorders for research purposes is feasible with uptake highest among newly recruited participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Mobile mood-monitoring applications are increasingly used by mental health providers, widely advocated within research, and a potentially effective method to engage young people. However, little is known about their efficacy and usability in young populations. Method. A systematic review addressing three research questions focused on young people: (1) what are the psychometric properties of mobile mood-monitoring applications; (2) what is their usability; and (3) what are their positive and negative clinical impacts? Findings were synthesised narratively, study quality assessed and compared with evidence from adult studies. Results. We reviewed 25 articles. Studies on the psychometric properties of mobile mood-monitoring applications were sparse, but indicate questionable to excellent internal consistency, moderate concurrent validity and good usability. Participation rates ranged from 30% to 99% across studies, and appeared to be affected by methodological factors (e.g. payments) and individual characteristics (e.g. IQ score). Mobile mood-monitoring applications are positively perceived by youth, may reduce depressive symptoms by increasing emotional awareness, and could aid in the detection of mental health and substance use problems. There was very limited evidence on potential negative impacts. Conclusions. Evidence for the use of mood-monitoring applications in youth is promising but limited due to a lack of high-quality studies. Future work should explicate the effects of mobile mood-monitoring applications on effective selfregulation, clinical outcomes across disorders and young people's engagement with mental health services. Potential negative impacts in this population should also be investigated, as the adult literature suggests that application use could potentially increase negativity and depression symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Traditionally, assessment of psychiatric symptoms has been relying on their retrospective report to a trained interviewer. The emergence of smartphones facilitates passive sensor-based monitoring and active real-time monitoring through time-stamped prompts; however there are few validated self-report measures designed for this purpose.Methods: We introduce a novel, compact questionnaire, Mood Zoom (MZ), embedded in a customised smart-phone application. MZ asks participants to rate anxiety, elation, sadness, anger, irritability and energy on a 7-point Likert scale. For comparison, we used four standard clinical questionnaires administered to participants weekly to quantify mania (ASRM), depression (QIDS), anxiety (GAD-7), and quality of life (EQ-5D). We monitored 48 Bipolar Disorder (BD), 31 Borderline Personality Disorders (BPD) and 51 Healthy control (HC) participants to study longitudinal (median±iqr: 313±194 days) variation and differences of mood traits by exploring the data using diverse time-series tools.Results: MZ correlated well (|R|>0.5,p<0.0001) with QIDS, GAD-7, and EQ-5D. We found statistically strong (|R|>0.3,p<0.0001) differences in variability in all questionnaires for the three cohorts. Compared to HC, BD and BPD participants exhibit different trends and variability, and on average had higher self-reported scores in mania, depression, and anxiety, and lower quality of life. In particular, analysis of MZ variability can differentiate BD and BPD which was not hitherto possible using the weekly questionnaires.Limitations: All reported scores rely on self-assessment; there is a lack of ongoing clinical assessment by experts to validate the findings.Conclusions: MZ could be used for efficient, long-term, effective daily monitoring of mood instability in clinical psychiatric practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various styles of communication can be used when working with people with mental health issues, and all formats can contribute to therapeutic goals. However, there is little in the literature about young people's use of pictorial text messages, or emojis, when they are experiencing mental distress. This article considers how young people in mental distress can send emojis in text messages to their parents or guardians to open up channels of communication, and how this can help improve their mental well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]