Skip to main content
OpenTrials
Not Yet Recruiting

NCT Number: NCT07174557

Remote Evaluation and Alerting for Collaborative Health (REACH) in Depression

Researchers hope to see if the data smartphones collect continuously can be used to predict if patient's depression symptoms will return. They will do this by collecting data from patient's smartphones and comparing it to their depression symptoms. If this method is successful, researchers could develop a smartphone application to help healthcare providers better monitor patient's depression and intervene earlier if symptoms return.

Not Yet Recruiting

Trial opening soon.

Get Notified

Key information

Conditions

Depression Behavior Behavioral Symptoms Depressive Disorder Depressive Disorder, Major Major Depressive Disorder Mental Disorders Mood Disorders

Age range

18 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, United States

Loading trial locations.

About this study

Study phase 1: The investigators expect that participants will be in this research study for six months. Participants will be asked to download an app on their smartphone. This app will collect data from the phone's sensors. Participants will also be asked to answer some questions about their mood each month.

Study phase 2: This phase of the study is randomized which means that in order to learn about the effect of the Smartphone App, half the people in this study will use it, and the other half will not. If participants decide to enroll into this research study, they will be assigned by chance to one of the following groups:

Group A: Participants will be asked to download a Smartphone App. This App will collect data from the phone's sensors.

Group B: Participants will have usual care. Both Groups: Participants will be asked to complete questionnaires about their mood each month.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Adult patients (18 years or older)
  • Treated for depression within Dartmouth Health collaborative care model (CoCM) sites who are discharged from CoCM without depression (PHQ-9 < 10)
  • Have access to and ability to use a smartphone (Android version ≥ 6 or iOS version ≥ 11).

Exclusion criteria

  • Identified as high risk due to active suicidality, psychosis, or bipolar disorder - Discharged from CoCM with ongoing depressive symptoms (PhQ-9 > 10

Treatment and study plan

MoodTriggers Application

Other

The Mood Triggers application, developed by Dr. Jacobson, will be used for collecting smartphone sensor data. This HIPAA-compliant app has been incorporated into various projects at Dartmouth, Stanford, and MGH/Harvard, with development supported by NIDA, NIMHD, NCI, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Mood Triggers app will capture a wide range of metrics, including psychomotor agitation, sleep disturbances, low behavioral activation, social contact, exposure to natural light, heart rate, heart rate variability, and screen time. The app also tracks the patient's screen time and app usage data. The Mood Triggers App will be installed on the smartphones at time of informed consent for all 120 patients enrolled in Phase 1 and for 100 clinical trial participants randomized to the "early warning system" (intervention arm) in Phase 2. Data will be collected from the Mood Triggers App starting on day of discharge from care and for 6 months post-discharge date.

Primary outcomes

  1. Monthly depression relapse

    Time frame: discharge, 6-months post-discharge

    The 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), a validated self-reported depression questionnaire, will be used to detect monthly depression recurrence based on past-month MoodTriggers application data. The PHQ-9 scores range from 0-27, with higher scores reflecting higher depression symptom levels. The PHQ-9 will be used to detect monthly recurrence of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD; PHQ-9 scores ≥ 10) during Phase 1 in all 120 participants. For the randomized clinical trial in Phase 2, we will capture the PHQ-9 monthly in both arms (MoodTriggers app vs. no app) for 6-months following discharge.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Perceived benefits and barriers of depression monitoring using passive sensing data collected from mobile phones

    Time frame: 0-6 months post-discharge

    A subgroup of individuals from Phase 1 will be invited and verbally consented to participate in semi-structured interviews to provide their experiences with the study's digital biomarker "early warning" system. The purpose of this interview is to identify perceived benefits and barriers of depression monitoring using passive sensing data collection from your mobile phone. The information gathered will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the Mood Trigger app in predicting symptoms of depression.

Study contacts

Contact information is provided by the study sponsor or research team.

Nicholas C Jacobson, PhD

CONTACT

[email protected]

(603) 646-7037

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

Other

Collaborators

  • National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)

Registry information

Official study title

Beyond the Clinic: Enhancing Depression Surveillance With a Digital Biomarker

Important dates

Study start
2026
Primary completion
2029
Study completion
2029
First posted
Sep 16, 2025
Registry last updated
Dec 17, 2025

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

Related clinical trials

Published trials that share one or more normalized conditions with this study.