A Preliminary Randomized Controlled Trial of My Wise Coach: A Web App–Based Intervention For Nonsuicidal Self-Injury in Iranian Adolescents

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop and validate My Wise Coach, a web-based intervention designed to address the treatment needs of adolescents with NSSI in an Iranian sample. After developing the web-based intervention, a preliminary randomized controlled trial with a pretest-posttest design was conducted to investigate the efficacy of the web app-based intervention in reducing NSSI among Iranian adolescents. The participants consisted of 70 students (57.14% females) who were randomly assigned into two groups, and analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data. In this study, we examined key variables such as maladaptive schemas, distress tolerance, rumination, avoidance, impulsivity, trauma history, and NSSI behaviors. The results of MANCOVA indicated that there was a significant improvement in the treatment group across the examined variables, suggesting that the web-based intervention was effective. The results suggested that using the My Wise Coach web app was effective in helping adolescents manage experiential avoidance and rumination, which are considered maladaptive responses to early maladaptive schemas. This, in turn, may reduce schema-driven responses and engagement in NSSI. Generally, these findings extend our understanding of effective interventions for adolescent NSSI and provide preliminary evidence for a scalable digital treatment option; however, further research is needed to determine underlying mechanisms and to refine intervention strategies.