Currently submitted to: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Dec 17, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Jan 4, 2026 - Mar 1, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
NOTE: This is an unreviewed Preprint
Warning: This is a unreviewed preprint (What is a preprint?). Readers are warned that the document has not been peer-reviewed by expert/patient reviewers or an academic editor, may contain misleading claims, and is likely to undergo changes before final publication, if accepted, or may have been rejected/withdrawn (a note "no longer under consideration" will appear above).
Peer review me: Readers with interest and expertise are encouraged to sign up as peer-reviewer, if the paper is within an open peer-review period (in this case, a "Peer Review Me" button to sign up as reviewer is displayed above). All preprints currently open for review are listed here. Outside of the formal open peer-review period we encourage you to tweet about the preprint.
Citation: Please cite this preprint only for review purposes or for grant applications and CVs (if you are the author).
Final version: If our system detects a final peer-reviewed "version of record" (VoR) published in any journal, a link to that VoR will appear below. Readers are then encourage to cite the VoR instead of this preprint.
Settings: If you are the author, you can login and change the preprint display settings, but the preprint URL/DOI is supposed to be stable and citable, so it should not be removed once posted.
Submit: To post your own preprint, simply submit to any JMIR journal, and choose the appropriate settings to expose your submitted version as preprint.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Gamified MHealth Apps and Psychological Well-Being: the Mediating Role of Positive Psychological Capital
ABSTRACT
Background:
Gamification has been increasingly integrated into mobile health (mHealth) applications to enhance user engagement and support mental health outcomes. However, empirical evidence explaining how gamified mHealth experiences contribute to users’ psychological well-being remains limited, particularly with respect to the underlying psychological mechanisms.
Objective:
This study aimed to examine the relationship between gamified mHealth experiences and psychological well-being and to investigate the mediating role of positive psychological capital (PsyCap) in this relationship.
Methods:
A cross-sectional survey was conducted among users of gamified mHealth applications. Gamified experience, PsyCap (hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism), and psychological well-being were measured using validated scales. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypothesized mediation model.
Results:
Data from 483 active users of mobile health applications were analyzed. Gamification affordances (GA) were positively associated with psychological well-being (PWB) (β = 0.54, P < .001) and positive psychological capital (β = 0.61, P < .001). Positive psychological capital was also positively related to psychological well-being (β = 0.54, P < .001). Bootstrapping analysis (5,000 resamples) indicated a significant indirect effect of GA on psychological well-being via positive psychological capital (indirect effect = 0.32; 95% CI 0.21–0.43), supporting partial mediation.
Conclusions:
This study highlights positive psychological capital as a key psychological mechanism linking gamified mHealth experiences to psychological well-being. The findings extend gamification research beyond engagement-focused outcomes and underscore the importance of designing mHealth interventions that support psychological empowerment and long-term well-being.
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.