Dataset Information

Interaction and Engagement with an Anxiety Management App: Analysis Using Large-Scale Behavioral Data.

ABSTRACT:

Background

SAM (Self-help for Anxiety Management) is a mobile phone app that provides self-help for anxiety management. Launched in 2013, the app has achieved over one million downloads on the iOS and Android platform app stores. Key features of the app are anxiety monitoring, self-help techniques, and social support via a mobile forum ("the Social Cloud"). This paper presents unique insights into eMental health app usage patterns and explores user behaviors and usage of self-help techniques.

Objective

The objective of our study was to investigate behavioral engagement and to establish discernible usage patterns of the app linked to the features of anxiety monitoring, ratings of self-help techniques, and social participation.

Methods

We use data mining techniques on aggregate data obtained from 105,380 registered users of the app's cloud services.

Results

Engagement generally conformed to common mobile participation patterns with an inverted pyramid or "funnel" of engagement of increasing intensity. We further identified 4 distinct groups of behavioral engagement differentiated by levels of activity in anxiety monitoring and social feature usage. Anxiety levels among all monitoring users were markedly reduced in the first few days of usage with some bounce back effect thereafter. A small group of users demonstrated long-term anxiety reduction (using a robust measure), typically monitored for 12-110 days, with 10-30 discrete updates and showed low levels of social participation.

Conclusions

The data supported our expectation of different usage patterns, given flexible user journeys, and varying commitment in an unstructured mobile phone usage setting. We nevertheless show an aggregate trend of reduction in self-reported anxiety across all minimally-engaged users, while noting that due to the anonymized dataset, we did not have information on users also enrolled in therapy or other intervention while using the app. We find several commonalities between these app-based behavioral patterns and traditional therapy engagement.

SUBMITTER: Matthews P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6324647 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Interaction and Engagement with an Anxiety Management App: Analysis Using Large-Scale Behavioral Data.

Matthews Paul P Topham Phil P Caleb-Solly Praminda P

JMIR mental health 20180914 4

<h4>Background</h4>SAM (Self-help for Anxiety Management) is a mobile phone app that provides self-help for anxiety management. Launched in 2013, the app has achieved over one million downloads on the iOS and Android platform app stores. Key features of the app are anxiety monitoring, self-help techniques, and social support via a mobile forum ("the Social Cloud"). This paper presents unique insights into eMental health app usage patterns and explores user behaviors and usage of self-help techni ...[more]

PMID: 30287415

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Project description:BackgroundInternet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT) for child and adolescent anxiety has demonstrated efficacy in randomized controlled trials, but it has not yet been examined when disseminated as a public health intervention. If effective, iCBT programs could be a promising first-step, low-intensity intervention that can be easily accessed by young people.ObjectiveThe objective of our study was to examine the feasibility and acceptability of a publicly available online, self-help iCBT program (BRAVE Self-Help) through exploration of program adherence, satisfaction, and changes in anxiety.MethodsThis study was an open trial involving the analysis of data collected from 4425 children and adolescents aged 7-17 years who presented with elevated anxiety at registration (baseline) for the iCBT program that was delivered through an open-access portal with no professional support. We assessed the program satisfaction via a satisfaction scale and measured adherence via the number of completed sessions. In addition, anxiety severity was assessed via scores on the Children's Anxiety Scale, 8-item (CAS-8) at four time points: baseline, Session 4, Session 7, and Session 10.ResultsParticipants reported moderate satisfaction with the program and 30% completed three or more sessions. Statistically significant reductions in anxiety were evident across all time points for both children and adolescents. For users who completed six or more sessions, there was an average 4-point improvement in CAS-8 scores (Cohen d=0.87, children; Cohen d=0.81, adolescents), indicating a moderate to large effect size. Among participants who completed nine sessions, 57.7% (94/163) achieved recovery into nonelevated levels of anxiety and 54.6% (89/163) achieved statistically reliable reductions in anxiety.ConclusionsParticipant feedback was positive, and the program was acceptable to most young people. Furthermore, significant and meaningful reductions in anxiety symptoms were achieved by many children and adolescents participating in this completely open-access and self-directed iCBT program. Our results suggest that online self-help CBT may offer a feasible and acceptable first step for service delivery to children and adolescents with anxiety.

Dataset Information

Interaction and Engagement with an Anxiety Management App: Analysis Using Large-Scale Behavioral Data.

Background

Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Interaction and Engagement with an Anxiety Management App: Analysis Using Large-Scale Behavioral Data.

Similar Datasets

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