Influence of Personality and Differences in Stress Processing Among Finnish Students on Interest to Use a Mobile Stress Management App: Survey Study

Abstract

BackgroundExcessive stress has a negative impact on many aspects of life for both individuals and societies, from studying and working to health and well-being. Each individual has their unique level of stress-proneness, and positive or negative outcomes of stress may be affected by it. Technology-aided interventions have potential efficacy in the self-management of stress. However, current Web-based or mobile stress management solutions may not reach the individuals that would need them the most, that is, stress-sensitive people.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to examine how personality is associated with stress among Finnish university students and their interest to use apps that help in managing stress.MethodsWe used 2 structured online questionnaires (combined, n=1001) that were advertised in the University of Helsinki’s mailing lists. The first questionnaire (n=635) was used to investigate intercorrelations between the Big Five personality variables (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) and other stress-related background variables. The second questionnaire (n=366) was used to study intercorrelations between the above-mentioned study variables and interest in using stress management apps.ResultsThe quantitative findings of the first questionnaire showed that higher levels of extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were associated with lower self-reported stress. Neuroticism, in turn, was found to be strongly associated with rumination, anxiety, and depression. The findings of the second questionnaire indicated that individuals characterized by the Big Five personality traits of neuroticism and agreeableness were particularly interested to use stress management apps (r=.27, P<.001 and r=.11, P=.032, respectively). Moreover, the binary logistic regression analysis revealed that when a person’s neuroticism is one SD above average (ie, it is higher than among 84% of people), the person has roughly 2 times higher odds of being interested in using a stress management app. Respectively, when a person’s agreeableness is one SD above average, the person has almost 1.4 times higher odds of being interested in using a stress management app.ConclusionsOur results indicated that personality traits may have an influence on the adoption interest of stress management apps. Individuals with high neuroticism are, according to our results, adaptive in the sense that they are interested in using stress management apps that may benefit them. On the contrary, low agreeableness may lead to lower interest to use the mobile stress management apps. The practical implication is that future mobile stress interventions should meaningfully be adjusted to improve user engagement and support health even among less-motivated users, for instance, to successfully engage individuals with low agreeableness.

Determinant Factors of Public Acceptance of Stress Management Apps: Survey Study

“…Furthermore, personal relevance and mental health needs may affect the acceptance of mHealth apps; therefore, public health initiatives on mHealth could highlight the benefits of preventive innovations that tend to diffuse very slowly (delay of reward after adoption), as proposed by Rogers [108]. Although our results correspond to findings on the relationship between stress and interest in using mHealth for stress management [75], it is important to mention that self-reported stress severity in our sample was low to moderate. Considering that the main target group for primary prevention and health promotion in Germany is healthy adults [109], such apps may have the highest potential to reach populations that are already rather privileged in terms of having the necessary resources and knowledge to efficiently use mental health services, as was the case in our sample.…”

“…Remarkably, the motivating influence of current needs (eg, for support in stressful situations) on intentions to use e-mental health services has not been consistently clarified. On the one hand, there is evidence for an association between stress perceptions and attitudes toward using e-mental health treatments [33,74] and a higher interest in using stress management apps [75]. On the other hand, there is evidence for “digital stress” caused by online multitasking and overload (eg, [76]).…”

Personality And Mental Health: The Moderator Role Of Emotional Intelligence

“…Neuroticism positively correlated with stress, anxiety and depression. These results were also found by Vujičić and Ranđelović (2017) and Mostafaei et al (2019), and similar results were reported by other studies (Brailovskaia & Margraf, 2016;Ervasti et al, 2019;Gramstad et al, 2013;Milić et al, 2019;Mousavi & Essazadegan, 2016;Pereira-Morales et al, 2019;Seto et al, 2019;Sørengaard et al, 2019). In contrast, (A) negatively correlated with stress, anxiety and depression.…”

“…In the study by Vujičić and Ranđelović (2017) it was found the same results but it was not found the stress correlation. However, Ervasti et al (2019) found that agreeableness negatively correlated to self-reported stress. In addition, Mousavi and Essazadegan (2016) indicated that anxiety and depression negatively correlated with agreeableness.…”

“…Mental health is the result of a complex interaction of social, psychological and biological factors (e.g., personality) (Ogboghodo, Osadiaye, & Omosun-Fadal, 2018). Personality has an impact on mental health that we cannot ignore and has been studied in several studies (Brailovskaia & Margraf, 2016;Ervasti, Kallio, Määttänen, Mäntyjärvi, & Jokela, 2019;Gramstad, Gjestad, & Haver, 2013;Lyons, Evans, & Helle, 2019;MacIntyre et al, 2019;Milić, Škrlec, Milić Vranješ, Podgornjak, & Heffer, 2019;Mostafaei et al, 2019;Pereira-Morales, Adan, & Forero, 2019;Seto et al, 2019;Sørengaard et al, 2019). There may be personality traits that protect individuals against mental distress in the face of adversity (Lyons et al, 2019).…”