Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Sep 16, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 28, 2021
A school-based mobile app intervention to enhance emotion regulation in children: an exploratory trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Most mental health disorders, including depression and anxiety have their onset during childhood. Rising prevalence rates of mental health difficulties in young people are asking for new, innovative approaches to tackle this problem. Digital interventions designed for the school context that can address common risk factors and symptoms such as emotion dysregulation present exciting opportunities to enhance existing youth mental health provision.
Objective:
The present research explored the use of a new app to support emotion regulation in children for the school context.
Methods:
Intervention components derived from a combination of public engagement events, user-centred design workshops and evidence-based methods based on cognitive-behavioural therapy. Four primary schools participated in a 3-month exploratory feasibility trial with 144 children and 6 teachers. Children (aged 10-12) accessed the intervention on tablets in the classroom and at home. Outcomes regarding usability, acceptability and implementation were assessed through digital user data, self-report questionnaires and interviews.
Results:
Results show that children and teachers reported positive experiences with the app and that the exercises helped them to calm down and relax. Children reported better emotional understanding. Areas of improvement are identified relating to design and technology issues, as well as future design goals in relation to more complex aspects of emotion regulation as a construct.
Conclusions:
The study provides important insights regarding the design, development and evaluation of a new app for children to support their emotion regulation abilities in the school context. Our results demonstrate that mental health apps represent a promising means to facilitate effective youth mental health provision in and outside of the school context. Important “lessons learned” are shared to support other researchers and clinicians on similar journeys. Clinical Trial: N/A
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.