A Virtual Hope Box Smartphone App as an Accessory to Therapy: Proof-of-Concept in a Clinical Sample of Veterans

A “Hope Box” is a therapeutic tool employed by clinicians with patients who are having difficulty coping with negative thoughts and stress, including patients who may be at risk of suicide or nonsuicidal self-harm. We conducted a proof-of-concept test of a “Virtual” Hope Box (VHB)—a smartphone app that delivers patient-tailored coping tools. Compared with a conventional hope box integrated into VA behavioral health treatment, high-risk patients and their clinicians used the VHB more regularly and found the VHB beneficial, useful, easy to set up, and said they were likely to use the VHB in the future and recommend the VHB to peers.