JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Mental health researchers are increasingly recognizing the potential of mobile phone applications (apps) to deliver empirically supported treatments. However, current options for developing apps typically require large amounts of expertise or money.

Objective:

This paper describes a pragmatic do-it-yourself approach for researchers to create and pilot an Android mobile phone app using existing survey software (e.g., Qualtrics Survey Platform).

Methods:

This work was conducted at an academic research center in the US focused on developing and evaluating behavioral health technologies. The process outlined in this paper was derived and condensed from the steps to building an existing app intervention, iCanThrive, which was developed to enhance mental wellbeing in women cancer survivors. In a recently completed pilot in the US that evaluated iCanThive, users launched the app a median of 20.5 times over a 6 week intervention period.

Results:

This paper describes an inexpensive, practical process that uses widely available survey software, such as Qualtrics, to create and pilot a mobile phone intervention that is presented to participants as a Web viewer app that is downloaded from the Google Play store. Health researchers that are interested in using this process to pilot apps are encouraged to inquire about survey platforms available to them, the level of security those survey platforms provide, as well as regulatory guidelines set forth by their institution.

Conclusions:

As app interventions continue to gain interest among researchers and consumers alike, it is important to find new ways to efficiently develop and pilot app interventions before committing a large amount of resources. Mobile phone app interventions are an important component to discovering new ways to reach and support individuals with mental health disorders.