Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Dec 22, 2025
Date Accepted: Sep 10, 2026
Mental Health Monitoring in Esports Athletes Using an mHealth Application: Requirements Analysis and Usability Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Esports athletes face the same substantial psychological stress factors as other athletes, yet mental health tools tailored to their needs are still lacking.
Objective:
This study addresses this critical gap by introducing MindAthlete, a prototype for a user-centered mobile health (mHealth) application intended to enhance mental health monitoring and support among esports athletes.
Methods:
Initially, qualitative interviews were conducted with experienced (sports) psychologists working in esports to identify key features. These features included mood and stress tracking, sport-specific psychological assessments, a comprehensive dashboard, and integrated stress-relief techniques. Subsequently, these insights influenced the development of a high-fidelity design prototype called MindAthlete, which emphasizes user-friendly interfaces, clear visual feedback, and engaging gamification elements. Usability testing was then performed on this prototype with 25 semi-professional and professional esports athletes, employing the System Usability Scale (SUS) to evaluate perceived usability.
Results:
MindAthlete achieved a mean SUS score of 74.8, classifying its usability as "good," and notably surpassing a benchmark mean SUS score of 68.05 reported for digital health applications. Qualitative feedback highlighted strengths such as intuitive navigation, appealing aesthetics, and efficient mood tracking, alongside suggestions for improvement including shortened animations and clearer initial onboarding. The results demonstrate that MindAthlete effectively addresses esports-specific mental health monitoring needs with robust usability.
Conclusions:
This research underscores the importance of tailored, engaging mental health solutions in esports, providing valuable insights and practical guidance for further development. Future work will focus on the technical implementation of MindAthlete, integration of wearable sensor data, and broader evaluations with larger, more diverse samples of (sports) psychologists and esports athletes to confirm generalizability and further enhance usability.
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