safety and Efficacy

Case Study: Wysa at NHS, UK
North East London NHS Foundation Trust began to look at the use of digital technology as an early support option two years ago and for the past year WYSA has been number one on their top five apps to try list.

Read more on how NELFT uses Wysa for young adult's mental health.
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First AI Mental Health App to meet Clinical Safety Standards
We're proud to announce that Wysa now meets the
NHS UK's DCB 0129 Standard of Clinical Safety.

Prepared by the NHS Digital Clinical Safety team, DCB 0129 is designed to help manufacturers of Health IT software evidence the clinical safety of their products.
MORE ABOUT THE NHS STANDARD
User Research by Dept of Psychiatry, University of Oxford

Wysa was noted for its ethical standards by researchers at Oxford Neuroscience, Ethics and Society Young People’s Advisory Group, Dept of Psychiatry, University of Oxford and the Wellcome Centre for Ethics & Humanities, University of Oxford in their balanced research article^a . This study was done with support and funding from the Wellcome Trust.

On Privacy & Confidentiality, the authors quote:

"The most important difference that we identified is that Wysa is only available as an app, which gives users the possibility to chat anonymously".

"Wysa offered privacy information during our first conversation. For example, Wysa mentioned it would ‘not share anything we discuss with anyone else."

On Safety, the authors note:

"It is worth noting that Wysa offers the option of getting support in a more traditional sense in conjunction with or as an alternative to the automated service. Its users can receive support from real-life mental health professional (‘Wysa Coach’) for a fee. This can prove particularly helpful in contexts where there is a lack of trained mental health professionals."

^a Kretzschmar, K., Tyroll, H., Pavarini, G., Manzini, A., & Singh, I. (2019). Can Your Phone Be Your Therapist? Young People’s Ethical Perspectives on the Use of Fully Automated Conversational Agents (Chatbots) in Mental Health Support. Biomedical Informatics Insights.
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Mixed Method Study by Dr. Becky Inkster, Fellow at Cambridge University
Along with external researchers, we conducted a real-world mixed methods study on the effectiveness and engagement of Wysa on anonymous global users.
Key findings
Wysa high-user^a group had significantly higher improvement (40% higher) compared to the low-user^b group, with a Mann-Whitney P=.03 and a moderate effect size of 0.63. This is comparable with effect sizes for online human therapy for depression.
A majority (79%) of users in the high-user group improved their symptoms of depression.
A majority (68%) of users in their feedback found the Wysa experience helpful and encouraging.
^a High users of Wysa: Those who engaged with Wysa on two screening days (separated by 14 or more days) as well as at least once in-between those days (n= 108).
^bLow users of Wysa: Those who only engaged with Wysa only on the two screening days but never engaged in-between (n= 27).

Read the peer-reviewed study published in the open access journal JMIR mHealth & uHealth¹.
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Efficacy Results

A within-group analysis showed that users who engaged more with Wysa showed a higher average reduction in depression symptoms (reduction of 31% in pre- scores) as compared with those who engaged less with Wysa (reduction of 18% in pre- scores).
A between-group analysis revealed that the average impact or improvement (pre- minus post- depression scores) among the high-user group was significantly higher (mean 5.84 [SD 6.66]) compared with the low user group (mean 3.52 [SD 6.15]); with a Mann-Whitney P=.03 and with a moderate effect size of 0.63.

¹ Inkster, B; Sarda, S; Subramanian, V (2018). "An Empathy-Driven, Conversational Artificial Intelligence Agent (Wysa) for Digital Mental Well-Being: Real-World Data Evaluation Mixed-Methods Study". JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 6 (11): e12106. PMID:30470676.
URL: https://mhealth.jmir.org/2018/11/e12106/
Connect With Us
We're very committed to research on efficacy of AI supported mental health and insights on user behavior and issues across cultures. Talk to us about partnerships or research proposals!

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Case Study: Wysa at NHS, UK

North East London NHS Foundation Trust began to look at the use of digital technology as an early support option two years ago and for the past year WYSA has been number one on their top five apps to try list. Read more on how NELFT uses Wysa for young adult's mental health.

First AI Mental Health App to meet Clinical Safety Standards

We're proud to announce that Wysa now meets theNHS UK's DCB 0129 Standard of Clinical Safety. Prepared by the NHS Digital Clinical Safety team, DCB 0129 is designed to help manufacturers of Health IT software evidence the clinical safety of their products.

User Research by Dept of Psychiatry, University of Oxford

Mixed Method Study by Dr. Becky Inkster, Fellow at Cambridge University

Along with external researchers, we conducted a real-world mixed methods study on the effectiveness and engagement of Wysa on anonymous global users.

Connect With Us

We're very committed to research on efficacy of AI supported mental health and insights on user behavior and issues across cultures. Talk to us about partnerships or research proposals!

North East London NHS Foundation Trust began to look at the use of digital technology as an early support option two years ago and for the past year WYSA has been number one on their top five apps to try list.

Read more on how NELFT uses Wysa for young adult's mental health.

We're proud to announce that Wysa now meets the
NHS UK's DCB 0129 Standard of Clinical Safety.

Prepared by the NHS Digital Clinical Safety team, DCB 0129 is designed to help manufacturers of Health IT software evidence the clinical safety of their products.