The effects of mobile apps on stress, anxiety, and depression: overview of systematic reviews

Khademian, Fatemeh; Aslani, Azam; Bastani, Peivand

doi:10.1017/s0266462320002093

Cited by 38 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…The results of this study suggest that the See Me Serene app is feasible to deliver and test. Our results appear to be similar to other studies that have found mHealth apps feasible to deliver and easy to disseminate [52][53][54][55]. We met or surpassed all of our feasibility benchmarks, including the recruitment and retention of participants and the collection of both self-report data and biochemical samples.…”

Section: Feasibilitysupporting

confidence: 86%

“…Although this study was not designed to test efficacy, we found significant reductions in all outcome variables with small to medium effect sizes. The evidence regarding effectiveness of mHealth apps is limited and mixed [53,54,[56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64]. While several randomized controlled trials have shown these apps to be effective at reducing stress, anxiety, depression, or PTSD symptoms [53,54,57,59], some have not reported positive results [60,61,64].…”

Section: Potential Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The evidence regarding effectiveness of mHealth apps is limited and mixed [53,54,[56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64]. While several randomized controlled trials have shown these apps to be effective at reducing stress, anxiety, depression, or PTSD symptoms [53,54,57,59], some have not reported positive results [60,61,64]. In addition, many studies report only significant pre-post results [56,58,62,63], thus limiting generalizability of the findings.…”

Section: Potential Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Use of a Guided Imagery Mobile App (See Me Serene) to Reduce COVID-19–Related Stress: Pilot Feasibility Study

Gordon¹,

Sbarra²,

Armin³

et al. 2021

JMIR Form Res

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Background The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to concerns about mental health resulting from regional and national lockdowns, social isolation, job loss, and concern about disease exposure. Objective We describe results of the pilot feasibility study of the See Me Serene mHealth app. The app provides users with immersive, vivid, nature experiences to reduce stress and anxiety related to COVID-19 and other isolation. The goals of the study were to develop the See Me Serene app and test the feasibility and acceptability of study procedures, and explore the potential impact of the app on stress and anxiety. Methods We developed and tested the See Me Serene app and our study procedures for feasibility, and gathered preliminary data with a goal of 100 participants. The research was conducted in 2 phases: (1) development and internal testing of the app; and (2) feasibility and pilot testing with participants recruited online through earned media (eg, news stories), presentations at a university campus, and social media (eg, online sharing of earned media and presentations). The feasibility study employed a mixed methods, within-subjects, pre-/posttest design. At baseline and 30-day follow-up, we assessed stress-related variables via validated self-report measures and saliva samples for determination of cortisol concentrations. Results We met or surpassed all our feasibility benchmarks for recruitment (101 participants recruited), retention (91% [90/99] of 30-day assessment completed), and data collection (99 participants completed all baseline data; 85% [84/99] of salivary cortisol samples returned). Participants adhered to the intervention. On average, participants listened to 48.2 audio files over 30 days or approximately 1.6 audio files per day. Participants were satisfied with the app, with 87% (78/90) rating the app as helpful in dealing with stress and anxiety. The app showed the potential to reduce stress, anxiety, loneliness, and worry. We did not find significant differences (P=.41) in cortisol levels over time. Our findings suggest that future research is warranted to test the efficacy of the See Me Serene app with a representative, diverse sample. Conclusions There is a need for evidence-based and easily disseminable stress-reduction interventions. See Me Serene is a feasible intervention and has the potential to reduce stress related to COVID-19 and other forms of social isolation. More research on See Me Serene is warranted.

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Section: Feasibilitysupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Potential Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Potential Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Use of a Guided Imagery Mobile App (See Me Serene) to Reduce COVID-19–Related Stress: Pilot Feasibility Study

Gordon¹,

Sbarra²,

Armin³

et al. 2021

JMIR Form Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Therefore, low education attainment may contribute to low self-efficacy in this study. Accordingly, it is necessary to seek effective strategies to enhance patients’ self-efficacy, especially using inclusive approaches, such as innovative technologies [ 40 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Association between perception of caring behaviors and self-efficacy in patients with cardiovascular disease at coronary care units: a cross-sectional study

2021

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Background: Assessing and improving patient self-efficacy are among the major roles of nurses. Nurses are also responsible for providing direct patient care, and they play a major role in improving patient care quality. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate nurses' care-giving behaviors. This study aimed to determine the association between caring behavior and self-efficacy in cardiovascular disease patients. Methods:In this cross-sectional study, 400 patients with cardiovascular disease who were admitted to hospitals in Jahrom, southern Iran, were selected through a stratified sampling design the Caring Behaviors Inventory and the Strategies Used by People to Promote Health questionnaires were used to collect data. Descriptive analyses, including Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests and Spearman correlation coefficients, were conducted using SPSS ver. 22.Results: Results showed significant relationships between perception of caring behaviors and selfefficacy (r=0.16, P=0.001) as well as subscales of respectful deference to others (r=0.12, P=0.015), assurance of human presence (r=0.12, P=0.019), and positive connectedness (r=0.18, P=0.001).Additionally, among the subscales of caring behaviors, "attentive to others' experience," with a mean of 5.17±1.10, was the highest priority and "positive connectedness," with a mean of 4.81±1.31, was the lowest priority for patients. The mean self-efficacy score was 73.94±29.78, and 169 patients (43.2%) had low self-efficacy. Conclusions:Given the positive relationship between perception of caring behaviors and self-efficacy in patients with cardiovascular disease, self-efficacy could be improved by paying more attention to patient care priorities and improving patient perception of caring behaviors.

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“…A handful of recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses have compiled existing evidence on the use of apps for the treatment of mental health. One overview of 9 systematic reviews found that mobile mental health applications (MHapps) showed some significant results in reductions of depression and stress scores [ 23 ]. A further meta-review of meta-analyses found that studies focusing on anxiety or depressive symptoms were of moderate to high quality and generally had small to medium effect sizes [ 15 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobile Applications in Mood Disorders and Mental Health: Systematic Search in Apple App Store and Google Play Store and Review of the Literature

Eis¹,

Solà-Morales²,

Duarte-Díaz

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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Objectives: The main objective of this work was to explore and characterize the current landscape of mobile applications available to treat mood disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, and dysthymia. Methods: We developed a tool that makes both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store searchable using keywords and that facilitates the extraction of basic app information of the search results. All app results were filtered using various inclusion and exclusion criteria. We characterized all resultant applications according to their technical details. Furthermore, we searched for scientific publications on each app’s website and PubMed, to understand whether any of the apps were supported by any type of scientific evidence on their acceptability, validation, use, effectiveness, etc. Results: Thirty apps were identified that fit the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The literature search yielded 27 publications related to the apps. However, these did not exclusively concern mood disorders. 6 were randomized studies and the rest included a protocol, pilot-, feasibility, case-, or qualitative studies, among others. The majority of studies were conducted on relatively small scales and 9 of the 27 studies did not explicitly study the effects of mobile application use on mental wellbeing. Conclusion: While there exists a wealth of mobile applications aimed at the treatment of mental health disorders, including mood disorders, this study showed that only a handful of these are backed by robust scientific evidence. This result uncovers a need for further clinically oriented and systematic validation and testing of such apps.

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The effects of mobile apps on stress, anxiety, and depression: overview of systematic reviews

Cited by 38 publications

References 59 publications

Use of a Guided Imagery Mobile App (See Me Serene) to Reduce COVID-19–Related Stress: Pilot Feasibility Study

Use of a Guided Imagery Mobile App (See Me Serene) to Reduce COVID-19–Related Stress: Pilot Feasibility Study

Association between perception of caring behaviors and self-efficacy in patients with cardiovascular disease at coronary care units: a cross-sectional study

Mobile Applications in Mood Disorders and Mental Health: Systematic Search in Apple App Store and Google Play Store and Review of the Literature

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