Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Dec 13, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 17, 2018 - Feb 11, 2019
Date Accepted: Aug 19, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Feasibility study of Driving to Health: A mental health mobile-friendly website for taxi drivers
ABSTRACT
Background:
Psychological distress among taxi drivers is five times higher than the general population and more than half of all drivers have experienced three or more potentially traumatic events in their lifetime. Yet help-seeking for mental health problems in this male-dominated, predominately immigrant workforce is low. Mobile technologies have the potential to increase mental health awareness, teach self-help skills and encourage help-seeking in this hard-to-reach population.
Objective:
This study aims to assess the feasibility, acceptability and potential efficacy of Driving to Health, a mobile-phone friendly mental health website application (app) designed for people working as taxi drivers.
Methods:
Drivers (n=46) were recruited from the Melbourne Airport Taxi Holding Yard to participate in a single-arm trial. Self-reported, paper-based assessments were completed at baseline and at one month. Feasibility was measured by completion rates, representativeness of study participants and levels of use. Acceptability was assessed by measuring users’ perception of the quality of the app and anticipated levels of future use. The efficacy of Driving to Health to increase awareness, self-help behaviours and intentions to seek help was assessed using the User Version of the Mobile App Rating Scale (uMARS) and the General Help-Seeking Questionnaire (GHSQ). Psychological symptoms were measured using the short form of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Data was analysed using complete case analysis.
Results:
Forty-two participants, comprising drivers from 10 different countries of origin and 14 different languages, completed pre and post study measures (91% completion rate). Just under half (45%) of participants used the app more than once with an average visit of 4 minutes 8 seconds. Responding to the uMARS, 62% said they would recommend the app to many people. Nearly all (95%) participants said that Driving to Health increased awareness of their own mental health, 86% said it increased their mental health knowledge, and 76% said it increased their self-help behaviours. Increases in help-seeking intentions on the GHSQ were not significant while increases on all three scales on the DASS-21 were not reliable or meaningful.
Conclusions:
This study suggests that Driving to Health is an acceptable and feasible eHealth intervention for a hard to reach population. Our findings also suggest Driving to Health results in increases in mental health awareness, behaviours and willingness to seek help. Clinical Trial: n/a
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.