Digital Peer Support for Opioid Use Disorders: Scaling Chat Support Groups to meet Community Needs

NIH RePORTER · NIH · R43 · $252,131 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY 90% of Americans with SUD are not in treatment. When patients receive care, they do so inconsistently. The average length of time an American spends in treatment before seeing a full year of recovery is 9 years. Peer Support is proven to be effective at engaging patients who are unwilling to engage with traditional treatment. Outcomes from current face to face peer models have shown reductions in inpatient utilization and positive clinical outcomes such as improved recovery capital. While there is some evidence that group models such as AA and NA are effective for some patients, their support is siloed away from other clinical care and community support. Our solution, Marigold Recovery Service (MRS) is a novel, machine learning enabled, digital peer support program that is built on top of an anonymous text-based social network. It fulfills the need for a robust, 24/7, secure platform to support patients at all stages of their recovery. This phase I proposal will demonstrate the ability of our service to engage and retain patients with Opioid Use Disorders and will also develop novel techniques to automatically analyze patient messages for clinical and social determinants of health-related needs.

Key facts

NIH application ID
10485580
Project number
1R43DA056275-01
Recipient
BEACON TECH, INC.
Principal Investigator
Satya Prateek Bommaraju
Activity code
R43
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2022
Award amount
$252,131
Award type
1
Project period
2022-09-01 → 2023-11-30