Clinical High Risk

This proposal aims to establish a Digital Laboratory focused on advancing help-seeking and expediting treatment initiation in youth ages 12-29 who are at Clinical High-Risk (CHR) for developing psychosis. Leveraging the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) model, this study will identify help-seeking subtypes in 25,000 youth who screen positive for psychosis-risk on Mental Health America's national online screening platform, iteratively develop and test theory and data-driven, personalized strategies to advance help-seeking using Micro-Randomized Trials and a Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial, identify the most accurate CHR screening threshold in an online environment, and link youth, when indicated, to local clinical care via AMP-SCZ, a NIH funded national network of CHR programs throughout the US. This academic-industry partnership aims to curate one of the largest datasets of youth with CHR, and to develop effective strategies to enhance early help-seeking, in a population where help-seeking is critical and a significant barrier to care.

This proposal aims to establish a Digital Laboratory focused on advancing help-seeking and expediting treatment initiation in youth ages 12-29 who are at Clinical High-Risk (CHR) for developing psychosis. Leveraging the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) model, this study will identify help-seeking subtypes in 25,000 youth who screen positive for psychosis-risk on Mental Health America's national online screening platform, iteratively develop and test theory and data-driven, personalized strategies to advance help-seeking using Micro-Randomized Trials and a Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial, identify the most accurate CHR screening threshold in an online environment, and link youth, when indicated, to local clinical care via Accelerating Medicines Partnership - Schizophrenia (AMP-SCZ), a NIH funded national network of CHR programs throughout the US. This academic-industry partnership aims to curate one of the largest datasets of youth with CHR, and to develop effective strategies to enhance early help-seeking, in a population where help-seeking is critical and a significant barrier to care.

This study is intended to test the feasibility of an integrated cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) skills group for adolescents and young adults at clinical high-risk (CHR) for psychosis. The current study applies a skills group drawing from evidence-based practices (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT)) to those at CHR for psychosis. Up to 30 CHR individuals (starting with a minimum of 3 participants, N accounts for attrition as well), aged 13-18, already receiving clinical services within the HOPE team at University of Pittsburgh will be offered a weekly skills group. Data collected on feasibility and outcome measures will occur pre (within 1 month) -post (up to 4-5 months) and half-way (up to 2-3 months) through the intervention. Taken together, the aim of the proposed intervention is to provide novel insights regarding the utility of a newly developed intervention that integrates both CBT and DBT skills for those at CHR for psychosis.