Co-Designing a Mobile App to Improve Mental Health and Well-Being: Focus Group Study

Abstract

Background Recent advances in mobile technology have created opportunities to develop mobile apps to aid and assist people in achieving various health and wellness goals. Mental health apps hold significant potential to assist people affected by various mental health issues at any time they may need it, considering the ubiquitous nature of mobile phones. However, there is a need for research to explore and understand end users’ perceptions, needs, and concerns with respect to such technologies. Objective The aim of this paper is to explore the opinions, perceptions, preferences, and experiences of people who have experienced some form of mental health issues based on self-diagnosis to inform the design of a next-generation mental health app that would be substantially more engaging and effective than the currently available apps to improve mental health and well-being. Methods We conducted six focus group sessions with people who had experienced mental health issues based on self-diagnosis (average age 26.7 years, SD 23.63; 16/32, 50% male; 16/32, 50% female). We asked participants about their experiences with mental health issues and their viewpoints regarding two existing mental health apps (the Happify app and the Self-Help Anxiety Management app). Finally, participants were engaged in a design session where they each sketched a design for their ideal mental health and well-being mobile app. Results Our findings revealed that participants used strategies to deal with their mental health issues: doing something to distract themselves from their current negative mood, using relaxation exercises and methods to relieve symptoms, interacting with others to share their issues, looking for an external source to solve their problems, and motivating themselves by repeating motivational sentences to support themselves or by following inspirational people. Moreover, regarding the design of mental health apps, participants identified that general design characteristics; personalization of the app, including tracking and feedback, live support, and social community; and providing motivational content and relaxation exercises are the most important features that users want in a mental health app. In contrast, games, relaxation audio, the Google map function, personal assistance to provide suggestions, goal setting, and privacy preservation were surprisingly the least requested features. Conclusions Understanding end users’ needs and concerns about mental health apps will inform the future design of mental health apps that are useful to and used by many people.

Developing a smartphone App based on the Unified Protocol for the transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders: A qualitative analysis of users and professionals' perspectives

“…Secondly, consistent with previous studies ( Farao et al, 2020 ; Mayer et al, 2019 ; Robillard et al, 2019 ; Sprenger et al, 2017 ), privacy and data protection, lack of resources and technological organizational culture and lack of experience were highlighted as “Barriers” to be considered for the development of the app. Finally, within the “Design” theme, complementary use, flexibility, personalization, gamification and motivation, interaction, accessibility, supervision and examples were identified as key topics, consistent with findings in previous literature ( Alqahtani et al, 2021 ; Donker et al, 2013 ; Garrido et al, 2019 ; Montero-Marín et al, 2015 ).…”

“…Finally, topics personalization and supervision refer to the adaptation of the app to the user's experience and the app's provision of a review of the work done by the user and the resolution of doubts. These topics have already been pointed out in previous literature, in which they appear as recommendations for the design of mental health apps that would help to improve users' adherence to, engagement with, and ability to benefit from them ( Alqahtani et al, 2021 ).…”

Development of an mHealth App–Based Intervention for Depressive Rumination (RuminAid): Mixed Methods Focus Group Evaluation

“…For example, a substantial percentage of the participants stated that integration of measurement-based care features would be favorable. Measurement-based care has been shown to improve outcomes of treatment for depression [ 97 , 98 ]. Therefore, a longer-term future direction would be to develop measurement-based care features and evaluate whether outcomes are enhanced.…”

“…Likewise, several participants mentioned wanting a social media component to help them feel more engaged. The incorporation of social media has been shown to improve app engagement [ 98 ] and may help to improve long-term app use [ 99 ]; therefore, we may also develop and include social features in future iterations of RuminAid.…”

Adapting a mobile anxiety intervention for a university community: Insights from a qualitative analysis

“…interventions that improve satisfaction with the intervention, user engagement, and effectiveness of treatment, and decrease attrition rates (Liang et al 2006;Vo et al 2019;Bol et al 2019). In one qualitative study that aimed to identify features that users found important in mental health and well-being applications, personalization of the application (e.g., the ability to choose the frequency of reminders, add personal preferences in their profile for offered strategies, and customize the theme of the app) was a key feature identified (Bol et al 2019;Alqahtani et al 2021). Our findings that users prefer personalized content and customizable reminders are consistent with these previous findings.…”