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The COVID-19 pandemic presents unique challenges to high quality, safe Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) service provision. Due to the necessity to ensure EIP continues despite this, we developed a multidisciplinary, blended, telehealth intervention, incorporating psychoeducation and peer support, for family members of first episode psychosis service users: PERCEPTION. This perspective article aims to: describe PERCEPTION; offer reflections on our experience of delivering it; make recommendations for future research; and synthesise key learning to assist the integration of similar interventions in other EIP services. We provide a descriptive account of PERCEPTION's development and implementation, with reflections from the clinicians involved, on supporting families using this approach. We experienced telehealth as patient-focused, safe, and efficient and believe the intervention's blended nature augmented families' engagement. The approach adopted can assist service providers to attain balance between protecting public health and offering a meaningful, therapeutic intervention to support families in the current epoch.

Aim: Early intervention for people experiencing first episode psychosis is a priority, and keyworkers are vital to such services. However, keyworkers' roles in addressing first episode psychosis patients' physical health are under researched. This study addresses this knowledge gap by evaluating a keyworker-mediated intervention promoting physical health among first episode psychosis patients., Methods: The study was informed by the Medical Research Council's Framework for Complex Interventions to Improve Health. First episode psychosis participants were recruited from three Irish mental health services. The intervention was evaluated in terms of its feasibility/acceptability., Results: Feasibility outcomes were mixed (recruitment rate = 24/68 [35.3%]; retention rate = 18/24 [75%]). The baseline sample was predominantly male (M:F ratio = 13:6; Med age = 25 y; IQR = 23-42 y). Common health issues among participants included overweightness/obesity (n = 11) and substance use (smoking/alcohol consumption [n = 19]). Participants' initial health priorities included exercising more (n = 10), improving diet (n = 6), weight loss (n = 7) and using various health/healthcare services. The intervention's acceptability was evidenced by the appreciation participants had for physical health keyworkers' support, as well as the healthy lifestyle, which the intervention promoted. Acceptability was somewhat compromised by a low-recruitment rate, variable linkages between keyworkers and general practitioners (GPs) and COVID-19 restrictions., Conclusions: Physical health-oriented keyworker interventions for first episode psychosis patients show promise and further evaluation of such initiatives is warranted. Future interventions should be mindful of participant recruitment challenges, strategies to enhance relationships between keyworkers and GPs, and if necessary, they should mitigate COVID-19 restrictions' impacts on care., (© 2021 The Authors. Early Intervention in Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.)

Background: Digital Contact Tracing is seen as a key tool in reducing the propagation of Covid-19. But it requires high uptake and continued participation across the population to be effective. To achieve sufficient uptake/participation, health authorities should address, and thus be aware of, user concerns., Aim: This work manually analyzes user reviews of the Irish Heath Service Executive's (HSE) Contact Tracker app, to identify user concerns and to lay the foundations for subsequent, large-scale, automated analyses of reviews. While this might seem tightly scoped to the Irish context, the HSE app provides the basis for apps in many jurisdictions in the USA and Europe., Methods: Manual analysis of (1287) user reviews from the Google/Apple playstores was performed, to identify the aspects of the app that users focused on, and the positive/negative sentiment expressed., Results: The findings suggest a largely positive sentiment towards the app, and that users thought it handled data protection and transparency aspects well. But feedback suggests that users would appreciate more targeted feedback on the incidence of the virus, and facilities for more proactive engagement, like notifications that prompt users to submit their health status daily. Finally, the analysis suggests that the "android battery" issue and the backward-compatibility issue with iPhones seriously impacted retention/uptake of the app respectively., Conclusion: The HSE have responded to the public's desire for targeted feedback in newer versions, but should consider increasing the app's proactive engagement. The results suggest they should also raise the backward compatibility issue, regarding older iPhones, with Apple., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Background: Contact tracing remains a critical part of controlling COVID-19 spread. Many countries have developed novel software applications (Apps) in an effort to augment traditional contact tracing methods., Aim: Conduct a national survey of the Irish population to examine barriers and levers to the use of a contact tracing App., Methods: Adult participants were invited to respond via an online survey weblink sent via e-mail and messaging Apps and posted on our university website and on popular social media platforms, prior to launch of the national App solution., Results: A total of 8088 responses were received, with all 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland represented. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they would definitely download a contact-tracing App, while 30% said they would probably download a contact tracing App. Ninety-five percent of respondents identified at least one reason for them to download such an App, with the most common reasons being the potential for the App to help family members and friends and a sense of responsibility to the wider community. Fifty-nine percent identified at least one reason not to download the App, with the most common reasons being fear that technology companies or the government might use the App technology for greater surveillance after the pandemic., Conclusion: The Irish citizens surveyed expressed high levels of willingness to download a public health-backed App to augment contact tracing. Concerns raised regarding privacy and data security will be critical if the App is to achieve the large-scale adoption and ongoing use required for its effective operation., (© 2020. Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland.)

Background: Digital contact tracing apps have the potential to augment contact tracing systems and disrupt COVID-19 transmission by rapidly identifying secondary cases prior to the onset of infectiousness and linking them into a system of quarantine, testing, and health care worker case management. The international experience of digital contact tracing apps during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates how challenging their design and deployment are., Objective: This study aims to derive and summarize best practice guidance for the design of the ideal digital contact tracing app., Methods: A collaborative cross-disciplinary approach was used to derive best practice guidance for designing the ideal digital contact tracing app. A search of the indexed and gray literature was conducted to identify articles describing or evaluating digital contact tracing apps. MEDLINE was searched using a combination of free-text terms and Medical Subject Headings search terms. Gray literature sources searched were the World Health Organization Institutional Repository for Information Sharing, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control publications library, and Google, including the websites of many health protection authorities. Articles that were acceptable for inclusion in this evidence synthesis were peer-reviewed publications, cohort studies, randomized trials, modeling studies, technical reports, white papers, and media reports related to digital contact tracing., Results: Ethical, user experience, privacy and data protection, technical, clinical and societal, and evaluation considerations were identified from the literature. The ideal digital contact tracing app should be voluntary and should be equitably available and accessible. User engagement could be enhanced by small financial incentives, enabling users to tailor aspects of the app to their particular needs and integrating digital contact tracing apps into the wider public health information campaign. Adherence to the principles of good data protection and privacy by design is important to convince target populations to download and use digital contact tracing apps. Bluetooth Low Energy is recommended for a digital contact tracing app's contact event detection, but combining it with ultrasound technology may improve a digital contact tracing app's accuracy. A decentralized privacy-preserving protocol should be followed to enable digital contact tracing app users to exchange and record temporary contact numbers during contact events. The ideal digital contact tracing app should define and risk-stratify contact events according to proximity, duration of contact, and the infectiousness of the case at the time of contact. Evaluating digital contact tracing apps requires data to quantify app downloads, use among COVID-19 cases, successful contact alert generation, contact alert receivers, contact alert receivers that adhere to quarantine and testing recommendations, and the number of contact alert receivers who subsequently are tested positive for COVID-19. The outcomes of digital contact tracing apps' evaluations should be openly reported to allow for the wider public to review the evaluation of the app., Conclusions: In conclusion, key considerations and best practice guidance for the design of the ideal digital contact tracing app were derived from the literature., (©James O'Connell, Manzar Abbas, Sarah Beecham, Jim Buckley, Muslim Chochlov, Brian Fitzgerald, Liam Glynn, Kevin Johnson, John Laffey, Bairbre McNicholas, Bashar Nuseibeh, Michael O'Callaghan, Ian O'Keeffe, Abdul Razzaq, Kaavya Rekanar, Ita Richardson, Andrew Simpkin, Cristiano Storni, Damyanka Tsvyatkova, Jane Walsh, Thomas Welsh, Derek O'Keeffe. Originally published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth (https://mhealth.jmir.org), 07.06.2021.)