Project Title: Gieia: The Study of an Algorithmic App-Based Approach to Teens’ Mental Wellness Assessment
BASIS Advisor: Ms.Das
Internship Location: Massachusetts General Hospital
Onsite Mentor: Dr. Areej El Jawahri
The standard mental wellness assessment for teens currently only occurs once a year in a pediatrician’s office and thus does not provide an accurate perspective on teens’ constantly fluctuating mental wellness. This research is determining whether the standard assessment for mental health and substance use may be conducted algorithmically through a mobile app as well as the feasibility and acceptability of utilizing this method to assess mental wellness among teens. To determine whether the standard mental wellness assessment may be conducted algorithmically, I am validating the algorithms within Gieia, a teens’ mobile mental wellness assessment app that I developed, through a two-part process. My mentor is assessing and diagnosing data sets for the validated screening tools within Gieia based on each screening tool’s corresponding scoring guide. Next, I am inputting these data sets into Gieia’s algorithms and checking whether my mentor’s manual diagnoses match Gieia’s diagnoses. Secondly, I am conducting market research with a cohort of teen colleagues who are utilizing Gieia and providing feedback through a qualitative interview. The interview addresses teens’ perception of the acceptability, accessibility, and content of Gieia; challenges utilizing Gieia; and suggested modifications to Gieia to promote teens’ engagement. These results can validate that teens may utilize Gieia to assess mental wellness consistently thus providing a more complete perspective on teens’ mental wellness and leading to a more accurate diagnosis. Furthermore, these results inform future modifications to Gieia to ensure that this tool promotes the accessibility of mental wellness assessment and resources for teens.
My Posts
Week 2: Modifying Gieia’s PHQ-9 scoring to validate Gieia’s accurate assessment of teens’ mental wellness
This week I worked on modifying Gieia’s PHQ-9 scoring based on the contrast that I previously noted between the manually-computed scores and the Gieia-produced scores. I began by comparing the manual PHQ-9 scoring guide to Gieia’s algorithm. However, I found that the logic of the scoring guide and Gieia’s algorithm were identical. As a result, […]
Week 1: Creating and diagnosing screening tool datasets and inputting them to Gieia
This week, my overall goal was to ensure that Gieia’s algorithms are scoring the PHQ-9 (assessing mental health) and AUDIT (assessing substance use) screening tools accurately. In order to ensure this, I sought to confirm that the final diagnoses obtained based on Gieia’s algorithms were consistent with the diagnoses obtained with the manual scoring guides […]
Week 0: Introducing An App-Based Approach To Teens’ Mental Wellness Assessment
My name is Kamie Aran, and I am fascinated by the intersection of health and technology. I am particularly interested in learning how wielding computer science can promote healthcare’s accessibility and possibilities. My passion for computer science began in the sixth grade as I saw the opportunities formed by computer science’s infinite applications through a […]