Hidalgo–Mazzei D, et al. – Physicians designed this study to assess the potential impact of SIMPLe 1.0 in biological rhythms (BR) regulation using the Biological Rhythms Interview of Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (BRIAN) scale. Results of this study suggested that there are potential positive effects of a psychoeducational smartphone application as an adjunctive to treatment as usual in bipolar disorder (BD) patients’ BR.

Methods

• For this study, 51 remitted BD patients were asked to use the application for three months.
• After that, paired t-test analyses were utilized to compare baseline and follow-up BRIAN´s total and domains scores.
• Finally, the sample was divided into completers and non-completers of the study to assess differences between groups regarding BRIAN scores using ANCOVA (Analysis of Covariance) analyses.

Results

• The analysis in this study showed that the BRIAN's mean total score of the whole sample significantly diminished from baseline to post-intervention (35.89 (SD 6.64) vs. 31.18 (SD 6.33), t = 4.29, p = 0.001).
• Notably, there was a significant difference between groups regarding the total BRIAN mean score (29.47 (SD 6.21) completers vs. 35.92 (SD 3.90) non-completers, t = 2.50, p = 0.02) at post-intervention.
• However, this difference was maintained after conducting a one-way ANCOVA controlling for pre-intervention BRIAN scores, F (1, 46) = 10.545, p=0.002.