Efficacy of the Mental Health App “Intellect” to Improve Body Image and Self-compassion in Young Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial With a 4-Week Follow-up

Abstract

Background Body image concerns are prevalent among young adults, who may be vulnerable to developing body image concerns because of particular risk factors associated with this life period. With technological advancements, digital mobile health (mHealth) apps are cost-effective and scalable interventions. Thus, mHealth apps can be explored as a form of prevention effort to alleviate body image concerns in young adults. Objective In this randomized controlled trial, we examined the effectiveness of a self-guided mHealth app in improving body image and self-compassion in a sample of university students. Methods Participants (N=310) were randomized to a 9-day self-guided body image and self-compassion mHealth app (n=149) and to an active waitlist control group (n=161), where they completed a similarly structured 9-day program on cooperation. Both programs consisted of content learning and activities such as quizzes, with the number and length of activities matched for both programs. Measures were obtained at baseline, upon completion of the programs (after the intervention), and at 4-week follow-up. Results The intervention group for female participants reported significant reduction in body dissatisfaction (P<.001) and improvements in body appreciation (P<.001) and self-compassion (P=.001) compared with the active waitlist control group after the intervention. Similarly, for male participants after the intervention, a significant reduction was found in the intervention group in body dissatisfaction (P<.001) after the intervention as well as improvements in body appreciation (P=.02) and self-compassion (P=.047). The effects were maintained at 4-week follow-up for female participants on body dissatisfaction (P<.001), body appreciation (P<.001), and self-compassion (P=.02) but not for male participants. On body image risk factors, significant reductions were found for female participants after the intervention for thin-ideal internalization (P<.001), peer pressure (P=.002), and media pressure (P<.001) after the intervention, while the effects were only maintained for thin-ideal internalization (P=.008) and media pressure (P=.01) at 4-week follow-up, compared with the active waitlist control group. As for male participants, no intervention effects were found both after the intervention and at follow-up for all body image risk factors of muscularity internalization, peer pressure, and media pressure. Both apps were acceptable and participants engaged equally across the intervention and active waitlist control groups, as indicated on a measure of app engagement (P=.76). Conclusions This study provides preliminary evidence for a self-guided mHealth app in improving body image concerns and self-compassion in young adult university students. Future studies should include longer follow-ups, and examine its effects with the wider populations of young adults. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04977973; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04977973

Efficacy of Intellect’s self-guided anxiety and worry mobile health programme: A randomized controlled trial with an active control and a 2-week follow-up

“…There were no significant differences in application engagement between both conditions (p>.05), indicating that participants were equally engaged throughout their respective programmes. The high mean scores on application engagement seen across both conditions (Intervention: M = 27.29, SD = 3.81; Active Control: M = 27.04, SD = 3.66) may infer that participants generally found our application to be acceptable [ 38 , 58 ]. At baseline, the sample was mildly anxious (M = 7.25, SD = 4.95) and depressed (M = 7.51, SD = 5.33), where 92 participants (30.77%) had a GAD-7 score of 10 or over, indicating moderate levels of anxiety and 90 participants (30.10%) had a PHQ-9 score of 10 or over, indicating moderate severity of depressive symptoms.…”

“…Intellect is a publicly available mobile health application aimed at providing mental wellbeing support using self-guided resources. Recently, these self-guided resources have been validated in previous randomized-controlled trials [ 58 , 59 ]. All programmes within the application were developed and have been reviewed by Intellect’s Scientific Advisory Board consisting of clinical psychologists and cognitive behavioral therapists.…”

“…Only participants who were able to download the application, have not participated in similar mHealth app studies, and completed the baseline measures (N = 323) were then automatically randomized using the randomizer function in Qualtrics to the Intervention (“Anxiety and Worry” Programme; N = 160) or the Active Control (“Procrastination” Programme; N = 163) condition. As the study is a single-blind trial, participants were broadly informed that the main purpose of the study was to evaluate the benefits of using a mHealth programme to improve wellbeing [ 58 ]. In addition, participants were not informed about the specific details of the study and their assigned condition beforehand in order to lower expectation biases [ 60 ].…”

Mobile Behavioral Health Coaching as a Preventive Intervention for Occupational Public Health: Retrospective Longitudinal Study

“…Intellect is a consumer-based mental health app that provides all registered users with free access to a variety of self-guided features, some of which have been validated in previous randomized controlled trials [ 18 , 19 , 53 , 54 ]. On the “Home” tab, participants can access any of the 3 self-help features: “Learning Paths,” “Rescue Sessions,” or “Guided Journals” ( Figure 3 ).…”

Efficacy of a Text-Based Mental Health Coaching App in Improving the Symptoms of Stress, Anxiety, and Depression: Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Most studies of digital mental health interventions are conducted in the West, with very little available data from Asia or other non-Western populations. Notably, 2 recent studies [ 23 , 24 ] in Singapore had highlighted the effectiveness of self-guided interventions in reducing stress and improving body image and self-compassion. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies assessing the effectiveness of digital interventions that combine the services of a mental health professional and self-guided tools within an Asian sample at the time of writing.…”