Interdisciplinary Development of a Transdiagnostic Mobile App to Enhance Children’s Emotion Regulation: Sharing Insights and Lessons Learned

Abstract

Background: Digital interventions, including mobile apps represent promising means to provide effective mental health support to young people. Despite the increased availability of mental health apps, there is a significant gap for this age group, especially for younger children. Research investigating the effectiveness and development process of child mental health apps is limited, and the field faces persistent issues in relation to low user up-take and engagement, which is assumed to be a result of lackinginterdisciplinary approaches.Objective: We present the development and design process of a new mental health app for children that targets their emotion regulation abilities. We describe the creation of a new interdisciplinary development framework, to guide the design process, and explain how each activity informed different app features.Methods: The first two stages of the framework employed a variety of methods, including: 1) classroom observations, 2)public-engagement events with the target group (N=21), 3) synthesis of the existing evidence as part of a meta-analysis, 4) a series of co-design and participatory workshops with young users (N=33), clinicians (N=7), researchers (N=12), app developers (N=1) , designers (N=2), and lastly 5) testing of the first high-tech prototype (N=15).Results: For the interdisciplinary framework we drew on methods derived from the medical research council framework for complex interventions, the patient-clinician-framework and Druin’s cooperative inquiry. The classroom observations, public-engagement events, and synthesis of the existing evidence informed the first key pillars of the app and wireframes. Subsequently, a series of workshops shaped and reshaped the content and app features, including games, psychoeducational films, and practice modules. Based on the prototype testing sessions we made further adjustments to improve the app.Conclusions: Although mobile apps could be highly suitable to support young people’s mental health on a wider scale, there is little guidance on how these interventions could be designed. The involvement of the different methods and especially the young users was very valuable. We hope that the interdisciplinary framework and multiple methods that we applied will be helpful to others who are also aiming to develop suitable apps for young people.

A School-Based Mobile App Intervention for Enhancing Emotion Regulation in Children: Exploratory Trial

“…A significant strength of this research concerns the development process of the app, for which we included children and young people at every stage and adopted a truly interdisciplinary approach [ 52 ]. Another strength relates to the collaborative approach with schools, which has various benefits.…”

“…Our development framework consisted of three stages, with each stage using a unique set of objectives, methodologies, and stakeholders ( Figure 1 ). A more detailed description of the development and design process was published as a preprint by the first author (BM) and can be found in a study by Moltrecht et al [ 52 ].…”

“…The content is presented through audio tracks, images, animated films, and games. A more detailed presentation of each module can be found in Multimedia Appendix 1 as well as the following preprint, which was published in a study by Moltrecht et al [ 52 ].…”

Self-directed digital interventions for the improvement of emotion regulation—effectiveness for mental health and functioning in adolescents: protocol for a systematic review

“…An increasing number of innovative self-directed digital interventions are being developed, which target emotion regulation and related processes (eg, emotional self-awareness) 32 33. Such interventions (eg, mobile apps) are led by the service user, with little to no support from anyone else (eg, therapist, parent/carer), and aim to widen access to support for adolescents.…”

“…An increasing number of innovative self-directed digital interventions are being developed, which target emotion regulation and related processes (eg, emotional self-awareness). 32 33 Such interventions (eg, mobile apps) are led by the service user, with little to no support from anyone else (eg, therapist, parent/carer), and aim to widen access to support for adolescents. Despite a growing number of self-directed digital interventions made available to adolescents, the effectiveness of interventions delivered in this self-directed and digital format for improving emotion regulation and psychopathology is, as yet, unclear.…”