Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: May 26, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: May 26, 2023 - Jul 21, 2023
Date Accepted: Apr 22, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Use of Exposure in an mHealth App Predicts Posttraumatic Stress Symptom Reduction
ABSTRACT
Background:
Mobile mental health apps (MHealth apps) are a cost-effective option for managing mental health problems, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The efficacy of MHealth apps depend on engagement with the app, but few studies have examined how users engage with different features of MHealth apps for PTSD.
Objective:
Using data from a pilot trial of Renew, an exposure-based app for PTSD, we tested whether engagement with exposure activities is associated with greater reductions in PTSD symptoms.
Methods:
Veterans (N = 69) self-reported PTSD symptoms before and after a six-week intervention period. App usage data was collected using a research-instrumented dashboard.
Results:
A hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that greater exposure engagement was related to greater PTSD symptom reduction. Moreover, this was true even when controlling for overall engagement with the app. The number of characters written during imaginal exposure and amount of time spent completing exposure activities were significant contributors to the model.
Conclusions:
Engagement with specific, active therapeutic components of MHealth apps, such as exposure, may be more important for symptom change than overall engagement with mHealth apps.
Citation
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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.