SCH: Personalized AI-Driven Models for Supporting User Engagement and Adherence in Health Interventions: Validation in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety
University of Southern California
Summary
Untreated anxiety undermines long-term physical and emotional wellbeing, especially among college students, with rates worsening since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the leading evidence-based intervention for anxiety, but many students fail to complete exercises between CBT sessions, reducing its effectiveness. Socially assistive robots (SARs) help promote adherence to home-based practice in the context of elder care, social skill learning, and physical therapy, but it is unknown how SARs can enhance CBT. The specific objective of this research is to develop personalized CBT SARs that can support CBT compliance for college students with anxiety. To meet the goals of the proposed work, these studies will determine how SAR personalization based on implicit and explicit feedback can help promote greater CBT compliance and anxiety reduction outcomes for students.
Description
The investigators will conduct a Phase 1 parallel intervention study with random assignment. The investigators will randomly assign consented college students reporting anxiety symptoms to one of two 6-week Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) exercise conditions that were validated in our preliminary studies. The participant will be randomly assigned to a condition (personalized versus not personalized socially assistive robot (SAR) CBT) and will be informed of their condition by the investigators when the participant is ready to start their home practice with the SAR CBT companion. During the…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18+ years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: * Are 18 years of age or older * Are university students * Are able to communicate in English * Have corrected-to-normal vision and hearing * Consent to have audio/video/interaction data recorded as part of the study * Have a GAD-7 (Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 item) score of 5 or greater, indicating mild to elevated levels of self-reported symptoms of anxiety * Have a lower than minimal level of suicidality risk as measured by the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) during screening ("NO" responses to items 3, 4, 5, and 6 on C-SSRS) * Having access to home W…
Interventions
- BehavioralExplicit CBT SAR Personalization for 6 weeks
College student participants with clinically elevated anxiety will engage in 6 weeks of in-home CBT daily exercises with an explicitly personalized CBT SAR in the participants' homes. Participants will receive personalized re-engagement feedback delivered by the SAR will be based on explicit user feedback regarding their subjective preferences related to the robot attributes and engagement features.
- BehavioralImplicit CBT SAR Personalization for 6 weeks
College student participants with clinically elevated anxiety will engage in 6 weeks of in-home CBI daily exercises with an implicitly personalized CBT SAR in the participants' homes. The personalized re-engagement feedback provided by the SAR will be based on machine learning methods applied to implicit visual and auditory cues.
- BehavioralControl CBT SAR for 6 weeks
College student participants with clinically elevated anxiety will engage in 6 weeks of in-home CBT daily exercises with a non-personalized CBT SAR. Participants will not have the capability to personalize the robot's attributes, and this condition will be a control baseline comparison group for the personalized intervention conditions described above.
Location
- University of Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles, California