Associate Professor Jessie Chin has received a $215,000 grant from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS grant RFA-2411-44091) for a two-year project to improve how people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) manage depression.
Depression is a common and serious comorbidity in PwMS, affecting 25.7 percent within a twelve-month period and nearly 50 percent over a lifetime. Despite the numbers being three times higher than the general population, previous studies show that about two-thirds of PwMS with depression are left untreated.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and motivational interviewing (MI) have been shown to be effective for addressing depression and promoting healthy behavior in PwMS, but these methods require trained personnel for phone-based counseling, limiting scalability and accessibility.
For her project, Chin will develop the Depression Regulation chatbot (DRBot), an open-source tool that integrates evidence-based, self-guided CBT with motivational interviewing. The new tool will provide patients with the support they need for their recommended treatment in a single, easy-to-use format. Using natural language conversations, DRBot will guide PwMS through evidence-based strategies for managing depressive symptoms, offering a scalable, generalizable, and sustainable intervention that can be accessed anytime, without the cost and personnel requirements of traditional phone-based counseling.
The DRBot will first be developed and evaluated with PwMS and clinical psychologists to ensure its clinical fidelity and feasibility. Its acceptability and efficacy will then be iteratively refined and validated with a national field study. The project will be administered with her collaborator, Chung-Yi Chiu from the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health.
According to Chin, the chatbot’s potential extends beyond just convenience. “This study could help scale up our existing evidence-based self-guided CBT tutorial to be available and accessible to more PwMS at no cost upon the completion of the study. This could enhance the mental well-being and depression management for PwMS to receive timely support and health equity.”
Chin’s research focuses on human-AI interaction, digital health, and health informatics. She holds a PhD in educational psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.