JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

African American women experience mental illness at a rate comparable to the general population. Despite the need for mental health care, they significantly underutilize mental health services. Previous studies of mHealth interventions to reduce anxiety or depressive symptoms revealed significant improvement in anxiety or depressive symptoms post-intervention. Use of mobile applications has the potential to eliminate or mitigate barriers to seeking mental health treatment or counseling when needed.

Objective:

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usability of a mental health app designed to help African American women manage anxiety and depression.

Methods:

A mobile application prototype was developed, then evaluated by African American women via individual usability testing sessions. Participants were provided with an Android mobile phone, assigned a persona and scenario, and asked to perform a series of tasks in the app and think aloud as they completed them. In addition, participants wore eye tracking glasses while they performed the tasks. At the end of the session, they completed the Questionnaire for User Interface Satisfaction to fully capture data on the usability of the app.

Results:

The results of the usability study (N=15) demonstrated that participants were mostly satisfied with the mental health app prototype. Moreover, the average mean scores of usability assessment in five domains (i.e., overall reactions to the software, screen, terminology and app information, learning, and app capabilities) ranged from 7.2 to 8.3 on a scale from 0 to 9 (low to high satisfaction) for tasks in Scenario #1, and 7.5 to 8.8 for tasks in Scenario #2 . Most participants were able to fully complete each task with limited or no assistance. Furthermore, the app met these requirements for developing a mental health app: 1) intuitive and easy to use; 2) feature to self-monitor mental health (e.g., depression severity monitoring); 3) learn coping skills (e.g., tips on how to overcome depression); 4) connect users with needed resources (e.g., therapist); and 5) option to plan activities for self-care. The eye tracking software captured that participants primarily focused on the left side and middle of the screen when looking for information.

Conclusions:

Since African American women have high rates of smartphone ownership, there is a great opportunity to use mobile technology to provide needed mental health resources and services. Future work will include incorporating feedback from the usability testing and focus group sessions to further develop the app and increase its usefulness and user satisfaction. The new version of the app will undergo usability and pilot testing.