Social Isolation and Serious Mental Illness: The Role of Context-Aware Mobile Interventions

IEEE Pervasive Comput. 2024 Jan-Mar;23(1):46-56. doi: 10.1109/mprv.2024.3377200. Epub 2024 Mar 29.

Abstract

Social isolation is a common problem faced by individuals with serious mental illness (SMI), and current intervention approaches have limited effectiveness. This paper presents a blended intervention approach, called mobile Social Interaction Therapy by Exposure (mSITE), to address social isolation in individuals with serious mental illness. The approach combines brief in-person cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) with context-triggered mobile CBT interventions that are personalized using mobile sensing data. Our approach targets social behavior and is the first context-aware intervention for improving social outcomes in serious mental illness.