A Smartphone App for Improving Mental Health through Connecting with Urban Nature

Abstract

In an increasingly urbanised world where mental health is currently in crisis, interventions to increase human engagement and connection with the natural environment are one of the fastest growing, most widely accessible, and cost-effective ways of improving human wellbeing. This study aimed to provide an evaluation of a smartphone app-based wellbeing intervention. In a randomised controlled trial study design, the app prompted 582 adults, including a subgroup of adults classified by baseline scores on the Recovering Quality of Life scale as having a common mental health problem (n = 148), to notice the good things about urban nature (intervention condition) or built spaces (active control). There were statistically significant and sustained improvements in wellbeing at one-month follow-up. Importantly, in the noticing urban nature condition, compared to a built space control, improvements in quality of life reached statistical significance for all adults and clinical significance for those classified as having a mental health difficulty. This improvement in wellbeing was partly explained by significant increases in nature connectedness and positive affect. This study provides the first controlled experimental evidence that noticing the good things about urban nature has strong clinical potential as a wellbeing intervention and social prescription.

Applying the pathways to nature connectedness at a societal scale: a leverage points perspective

“…This approach has also been used successfully in a smartphone version that prompted urban dwellers to note the good things in nature. This research found that increases in nature connectedness also helped explain clinically significant improvements in mental health (McEwan et al 2019). A content analysis of the sentences written during the good things in nature task showed that the intervention activated several of the pathways to nature connectedness, namely sensory contact, emotions and beauty (Richardson et al 2015).…”

“…Nature Connectedness is measurable using psychometric scales containing carefully constructed sets of items (for available measures see Tam 2013) and several studies suggest it can be increased through carefully designed interventions to prompt engagement with nature (e.g. Richardson and Sheffield 2017;Passmore et al, 2017;McEwan et al 2019). With regard to demographics, population surveys have shown that nature connectedness is significantly higher in women than men, but relatively consistent across all socio-economic groups such as people working in managerial, skilled and manual occupations (Richardson et al 2019).…”

“…Nature connectedness matters because it brings benefits for both humans and nature; it is a factor in improved mental wellbeing and increased proenvironmental behaviours. A recent systematic review shows a relationship between nature connectedness and both hedonic and eudemonic wellbeing (Pritchard et al 2019), with empirical work suggesting a causal link to mental wellbeing (McEwan et al 2019). The relationship to a worthwhile life has been found to be four times more important than an existing benchmark of socio-economic status (Martin et al 2020).…”

Let Nature Be Thy Medicine: A Socioecological Exploration of Green Prescribing in the UK

“…It is now widely accepted that spending time in natural or semi-natural environments (e.g., forests, grasslands, gardens and parks) can result in significant positive mental and physical health benefits [1][2][3]. For example, the Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku or 'forest bathing' has been shown to enhance innate immunity via lymphocyte cell activity and can reduce diastolic and systolic blood pressure [4,5]; gardening can provide relief from acute stress and improve symptoms of depression [6,7]; and simply spending time in nature can enhance psychological restoration (the ability to recover from stress) and can facilitate healthy child development [8][9][10].…”

Shmapped: development of an app to record and promote the well-being benefits of noticing urban nature

“…Shmapped was rated by users as highly functional (M=4.38, SD=.53), moderately engaging (M=3.42, SD=.59), and with moderate promise of impacting on behaviour change (M=3.44, SD=.88), according to the Mobile App Rating Scale-MARS [37]. Self-referral to Shmapped was successful, however referral from health professionals was less successful and reasons for this and recommended approaches to future recruitment are discussed [38,39]. Engagement with Shmapped was not optimal during feasibility testing (i.e.…”