Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Dec 16, 2020
Date Accepted: Feb 17, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Feb 19, 2021
COVID Coach: Exploring Usage of a Public Mental Health App Designed for the COVID-19 Pandemic
ABSTRACT
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted mental health and well-being. Mobile mental health apps can be scalable, useful tools in large-scale disaster responses and are particularly promising for reaching vulnerable populations. COVID Coach is a free, evidence-informed mobile app designed specifically to provide tools and resources for addressing COVID-19 related stress.
Objective:
The purpose of the current study was to characterize overall usage of COVID Coach, explore retention and return usage, and assess whether the app was reaching individuals that may benefit from mental health resources.
Methods:
Anonymous usage data collected from COVID Coach between May 1, 2020 through October 31, 2020 were extracted and analyzed for this study. The sample included 49,287 unique user codes and 3,368,931 in-app events.
Results:
Usage of interactive tools for coping and stress management comprised the majority of key app events (70.4%) and the majority of app users tried a tool for managing stress (58.8%). COVID Coach was utilized for 3 days or fewer among 80.9% of the sample whose first day of app use occurred within the 6-month observation window. Usage of the key content in COVID Coach predicted returning to the app for a second day. Among those who tried at least one coping tool on their first day of app use, 57.2% returned for a second visit; whereas only 46.3% of those who did not try a tool returned (P < .001). Symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD were prevalent among app users. For example, among app users that completed an anxiety assessment on their first day of app use (n = 4,870; 11.4% of users), 55.1% (n = 2,680) reported levels of anxiety that were moderate to severe, and 29.9% (n = 1,455) of scores fell into the severe symptom range.
Conclusions:
As the mental health impacts of the pandemic continue to be widespread and increasing, digital health resources, such as apps like COVID Coach, are a scalable way to provide evidence-informed tools and resources. Future research is needed to better understand for whom and under what conditions the app is most helpful and how to increase and sustain engagement.
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Copyright
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