Single-Arm Evaluation of the Soluna Digital Mental Health and Wellbeing Platform for Youth in California

Background: It is critical to investigate innovative methods of providing immediate mental health support for youth. Soluna is a digital mental health and wellbeing platform for youth ages 13 – 25 launched and developed through a partnership between the California Department of Health Care Services and Kooth Digital Health as part of California’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative. Soluna provides users with rapid access to self-help content and tools, pre-moderated peer community, coaching sessions, and care navigation from any internet-connected device.Objective: The purpose of this single-arm pragmatic evaluation study is to evaluate mental health and wellbeing outcomes among Soluna users over time.Methods: We conducted a non-randomized, single-arm pragmatic evaluation. Participants aged 14-17 completed three surveys (baseline, one-month, and three-months post-baseline) that assessed clinically-relevant outcomes and self-reported engagement with platform features. The primary outcome was psychological distress as measured by the YP-CORE. We conducted pre-registered analyses to determine whether outcomes changed among users over the three-month evaluation period.Results: A total of 232 participants completed baseline measures, with 136 and 98 participants retained at one- and three-month follow-ups, respectively. Participants showed statistically significant within-group reductions in the primary outcome of distress from baseline to three-months (d = 0.63), and statistically significant improvements in secondary outcomes of depression, anxiety, hopelessness, loneliness, suicidal ideation, and quality of life (r = .35-.53).Conclusions: In this pragmatic evaluation, youth using Soluna showed meaningful reductions in distress. Findings suggest that scalable digital platforms like Soluna may offer accessible mental health and wellbeing support for youth.