(PS12-80) Opportunities for Growth in Sociodemographic Reporting for Digital Mental Health Intervention Research: Insights from a Scoping Review

Background: Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) have the potential to reduce health equity disparities, but to achieve this researchers must recruit study participants with diverse sociodemographic characteristics. Sociodemographic reporting practices in clinical research are often limited, and to date have not been comprehensively reviewed in DMHI research.

Methods: This scoping review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of app-based DMHIs published between 2007 and 2022 examined the frequency of reporting for 16 sociodemographic domains (i.e., Ethnicity) and common category options within each domain (i.e., Hispanic). Five electronic databases were queried yielding 5079 screened records and 299 articles were included. 

Results: Approximately 35% of the 299 included studies were conducted in the US, and over three-quarters of all studies were published after 2018. None of the 299 studies reported on all 16 sociodemographic domains, and no study reported more than 9. The most frequently reported domains were Age (97%), Gender or Sex (98%), Education (67%), Race or Ethnicity (48%), Employment (42%), and Marital status (39%). The remaining 8 domains were reported in 1% to 16% of studies. For 8 of the 16 domains, the most frequent (modal) number of category options reported was one (e.g., reporting only “% female” without defining other categories such as “male”). 

Discussion: Sociodemographic reporting practices in RCTs of app-based DMHIs were found to be limited and incomplete. A number of factors may have contributed, such as the lack of standardized approaches to collecting sociodemographic information and international differences in how these domains are defined and applied. Additionally, practical concerns such as the impact of questionnaire length on participant burden, or restrictions imposed by scientific journals on word count, table size, or other formatting requirements may affect reporting. Future research could explore these questions, as well as quantify the specific sociodemographic composition of participants across study samples. Importantly, trends suggested that reporting practices may be improving over time, which may be due in part to increasing societal effort and awareness being given to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Conclusion: Comprehensive collection and reporting of sociodemographic data is critical, and will create opportunities for improved learning and understanding of diverse populations. With such knowledge in hand, DMHI researchers may explore the generalizability of their results and, when appropriate, create and study possible treatment adaptations. By continuing to improve sociodemographic data collection and reporting practices, DMHI researchers have the opportunity to increase the diversity and inclusivity of their research and contribute to DMHIs’ potential to reduce disparities in mental health equity.