Mosley Charitable Trust, the
Mackie Foundation, and the NIHR
Maudsley Biomedical Research
Centre, King’s College London.
In developing SURE Recovery,
the project team followed a
co-design process to make sure
that the app would meet the
needs and expectations of people
experiencing addiction. They
conducted interviews and focus
groups with people who were
using substances, in treatment
and in recovery, in order to better
understand the process of recovery
and how an app might support
this. Successive versions of the
app were also reviewed and tested
by people with lived experience
of addiction to make sure that
functionality was optimised, the
meaning of all text was clear,
all graphics and images were
appropriate, and there were no
bugs or system crashes.
Not everyone has a smartphone
or tablet computer, but there is
evidence that people who use
substances increasingly have
good access to mobile technology.
Mobile health apps, such as
SURE Recovery, tend to be easy to
download and cheap to use. They
can therefore be an additional
valuable resource for people
who may not be in contact with
services, and for people who may
be thinking about, or working on,
their recovery. We know that people
do not generally use mobile health
apps in a sustained way for months
and years – instead they tend to be
used as and when people feel they
meet their current needs. This is
how the development team expect
that SURE Recovery will be used.
It seems likely that different
features of the app will appeal to
different populations at different
points in time and with different
effects. For example, the recovery
tracker, with its personalised
feedback, may ‘nudge’ people to
reduce their substance use, change
their behaviours, or encourage those
who are not in treatment to enter
treatment. The artwork feature
may have a therapeutic effect,
enhance self-esteem or appeal to
those who find it difficult to express
themselves in words. Meanwhile,
the naloxone feature may increase
engagement with take-home
naloxone and improve overdose
management competency, so
potentially saving lives.
We encourage anyone with
lived experience of addiction and
an interest in recovery to download
the app and give it a try. If you like
it, we ask that you tell other people
so they know about it too. If you
think it can be improved, please
let the research team know. People
with experience of addiction have
a right to good mobile health apps
just like any other population, and
the aim is to ensure that the SURE
Recovery app is a resource that can
help as many people as possible.
SURE AIMS AND FEATURES
SURE Recovery is intended for people who are using drugs
or alcohol, in recovery, or thinking about recovery. It has five
main aims and six key features. The five aims are:
1. To enable people to track and monitor their own recovery
journeys
2. To enable people to recognise when they might need help
3. To enable people to identify sources of support
4. To enable people to find inspiration from others in
recovery
5. To generate new data that will help researchers and policy
makers better understand substance use and recovery
The six key features are:
1. A recovery tracker: this allows people to monitor their own
recovery using a co-designed validated outcome measure
called the Substance Use Recovery Evaluator (or SURE).
Once SURE is completed within the app, personalised
feedback and a score are generated. Weekly, monthly and
yearly scores can then be viewed in a graph, allowing app
users to view and track how their scores change over time.
2. A sleep tracker: this works in a similar way to the recovery
tracker. App users can complete a co-designed validated
scale of sleep problems called the Substance Use Sleep
Scale (or SUSS). This will then produce personalised
feedback and a score that also allows app users to monitor
and review their sleep problems over time.
3. A diary function: this provides a private space where
people can record their thoughts and feelings.
4. Artwork: the app provides a platform for people to share
their artwork with the recovery community. App users can
submit their artwork for possible display in the banner on
the home screen of the app.
5. A naloxone resource: this feature provides instruction on
the use of naloxone in the event of overdose. There are
also informational resources, including a training video
and a knowledge tracker which uses the Opioid Overdose
Attitudes Scale (OOAS), a validated measure of overdose
management competency.
6. Reading material: app users have free access to the book
The Everyday Lives of Recovering Heroin Users, based on
the lived experiences of people in recovery.
If you have an Android device,
the SURE Recovery app can be
downloaded from Google Play. If
you have an iOS device, the SURE
Recovery app can be downloaded
from the App Store. People can also
follow and communicate with the
SURE team via Facebook, Twitter (@
SURE-Recovery), Instagram (surerecovery)
and YouTube.
• Ed Day is national drug recovery
champion and clinical reader in
addiction psychiatry at University
of Birmingham.
• Jo Neale is professor in addictions
qualitative research at King’s College.
• Alice Bowen is research assistant
at King’s College.
• Paul Lennon is director of the
Aurora Project
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