Daily Subjective and Objective Smartphone Measures of Illness Activity to Treat Bipolar Disorder- The MONARCA II Trial

Bipolar disorder is associated with a high risk of relapse and hospitalisation and many patients do not recover to their previous psychosocial function. Major reasons for poor outcomes are delayed intervention for prodromal depressive and manic symptoms as well as decreased adherence with treatment. Recently, in the MONARCA I trial (NCT01446406), the investigators developed and deployed a smartphone based self-monitoring system (the MONARCA I system) in a randomized controlled trial, to test the effect of daily reporting of subjective self-monitoring of depressive and manic symptoms as well as a bi-directional feedback loop on depressive and manic symptoms. In the MONARCA II trial the investigators will develop and deploy a new version of the smartphone based monitoring system. The investigators will in a randomized controlled single blind trial investigate whether daily electronic monitoring of subjective and objective measures of illness activity using a smartphone based self-monitoring system including feedback on subjective as well as automatically generated objective data (e.g.social activity, physical activity etc.) (the MONARCA II system) reduces the severity of depressive and manic symptoms and improves functioning more than a control group receiving a smartphone. All patients will be followed for 9 months with outcome assessments at baseline, after 4 weeks, after 3 months, after 6 months and after 9 months.