Mobile phone mood charting for adolescents

Abstract

Mobile phones may provide a useful and engaging platform for supporting therapeutic services working with adolescents. This paper examines the potential benefits of the mobile phone for self-charting moods in comparison to existing methods in current practice. The paper describes a mobile phone application designed by the authors which allows adolescents to record moods on their personal mobile phones. The authors propose that a personal mobile device is more suitable for adolescents than other devices. A pilot study with a non-clinical adolescent group in schools comparing a mobile and a paper diary is presented, along with discussion and analysis of the results. The main finding of the study was that compliance is significantly higher on mobile phones than paper, and the task was not found to be any more difficult to complete using mobile phones than with paper charts. A number of salient issues requiring further research are also identified.

A systematic review of the psychometric properties, usability and clinical impacts of mobile mood-monitoring applications in young people

“…Average percentages were not computed in four studies. Instead, these studies described the mean number of diary entries per participant (Bossmann et al 2013), between-group differences (Matthews et al 2008b;Kauer et al 2009), or evidence of ongoing compliance (Tregarthen et al 2015). There was some indication that response rates were higher in studies with incentives.…”

“…Three studies (all using the same RCT data) were deemed at low risk of selection bias due to a clear description of the randomisation and concealment allocation process (Reid et al 2011Kauer et al 2012). Two studies were at unclear risk of selection bias because randomised sequence generation and method of allocation concealment were not sufficiently described (Matthews et al 2008b;Reid et al 2009). One study was considered at high risk of selection bias (Scotti, 2015) as there was no random allocation process for the control condition.…”

“…software crashes, reduced battery life) were reported to negatively affect user experience and participation (Loventoft et al 2012;Huh et al 2014;Dennis et al 2015;Sacco, 2015). Although most young people reported a preference for mobile phone mood charting in comparison to paper diaries (Matthews et al 2008b), not all young people preferred mobile technology Scotti, 2015). Scotti (2015), e.g.…”

“…A scoping review by Seko et al (2014) suggested that mood-monitoring apps are positively perceived by youth (Matthews et al 2008a), may improve treatment adherence (Matthews et al 2008b) and possibly improve mental wellbeing . While intriguing, findings were preliminary due to the low quality of available evidence (NCCMH, 2014), the small number of studies on mood-monitoring apps specifically and the limited number of apps studied (n = 2) (NCCMH, 2014;Seko et al 2014).…”

Viabilidade da monitorização da intervenção psicoterapêutica com adolescentes com recurso a aplicações móveis

“…No entanto, para os adolescentes o uso das novas tecnologias parece ser particularmente atrativo, providenciando um maior e mais continuado acesso do adolescente aos seus dados pessoais, às atividades e materiais terapêuticos, veiculando um meio promissor para comprometer o adolescente em todo o processo (Matthews, Doherty, Sharry, & Fitzpatrick, 2008). Contudo, e apesar das plataformas eletrónicas propiciarem ao indivíduo um maior comprometimento e potencialização da acessibilidade às atividades e materiais terapêuticos (Matthews et al, 2008), o método tradicional ("papel e lápis") é o mais utilizado na prática clínica corrente. Os principais benefícios são: (1) a sua fácil utilização, em que os adolescentes se encontram familiarizados com atividades de papel e lápis; (2) a sua simples implementação por parte dos profissionais; e (3) a sua não exigência de competências técnicas específicas para a sua utilização.…”