Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Apr 30, 2021
Date Accepted: Dec 21, 2021
The developmental process, feasibility and acceptance of the Grow It! app: a smartphone serious game for adolescents
ABSTRACT
Background:
Anxiety and mood problems in adolescents often go unnoticed and may therefore remain untreated. Identifying and preventing the development of emotional problems requires monitoring and effective tools to strengthen adolescents' resilience, for example, by enhancing coping skills. The current study describes the developmental process and game mechanics of Grow It!, a multiplayer serious gaming app.
Objective:
The aim of the Grow It! app is to (1) monitor behaviours, thoughts, and emotions in daily life by utilizing the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) to increase self-insights and (2) to offer daily cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) inspired challenges to promote adaptive coping in adolescents from 12-25 years old.
Methods:
Our approach entails an iterative game design process and an agile method to develop the smartphone app. The incorporated game features (ie, challenges, chat functionality, and visual representation) in the Grow It! app were co-designed with adolescents to increase participant engagement and adherence.
Results:
The Grow It! app was delivered for Android and iOS in May 2020. Grow It! was offered to adolescents during the COVID-19 crisis between May and June 2020. Participants of the Grow It! COVID-19 study (n = 968, 30.4% boys, M age = 17.3, SD = 3.4) completed on average 23.2 challenges (SD = 23.5) of the available 42 challenges during 6 weeks. ESM compliance, however, was suboptimal (17%). Surveys among 487 users indicated an overall score of 7.8 out of 10. 74% would recommend the app to friends and 66% reflected more on their feelings.
Conclusions:
To our knowledge, Grow It! is the first gamified ESM application, which contains integrated CBT-based challenges moreover. The Grow It! app obtained high user ratings and encouraged adolescents to be more physically active and reflect on their feelings. However, the integrated ESM tool needs further adjustment to increase compliance. Simultaneously, providing participants with feedback on their mood profiles would be an important feature for improving the app in the future.
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