Mobile health app alleviates anxiety among young adults

Recent research reveals that a mobile health application incorporating cognitive behavioral therapy skills effectively improved anxiety disorder symptoms in young adults.

Researchers from New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts conducted the study in an effort to investigate the efficacy of self-guided CBT mobile health apps with embedded user engagement features in alleviating anxiety disorder symptoms.

Americans are in the midst of a mental health crisis. According to the American Psychiatric Association's 2024 mental health poll, 43% of U.S. adults said they feel more anxious than they did the previous year. This figure has jumped from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022. However, only 24% of adults said they talked with a mental health professional in the past year, with younger adults aged 18 to 34 being more than twice as likely as adults over 50 to have done so.

Though mobile health apps show great potential in expanding access to mental healthcare, few studies have investigated their efficacy in individuals with anxiety disorder, particularly among young adults in the U.S.

For the new study published in JAMA Network Open, researchers conducted a randomized clinical trial with young adults aged 18 to 25 with anxiety disorders. They enrolled the study participants between June 16, 2021, and November 11, 2022.

The study participants were asked to use a mobile app that provided various CBT-based modules, including psychoeducational videos and quizzes, cognitive restructuring exercises, exposure exercises, and mindfulness. The participants were divided into three groups receiving different text message-based incentive conditions:

• A loss-framed condition in which participants began each week with a specific number of points they could lose for not completing assigned sessions on time.
• A gain-framed condition in which participants could earn points for completing assigned sessions.
• A gain-social support condition including all aspects of the gain-framed condition along with the ability to designate a loved one to receive text updates about their progress and provide social support.

The researchers included 59 participants in the study, 56% of whom had generalized anxiety disorder and 41% with social anxiety disorder.

Researchers concluded that digital interventions are a promising step toward wider dissemination of high-quality, evidence-based interventions.

They found that anxiety, as measured by the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A), was significantly lower during the third week of the intervention, at the end of the six weeks and during the 12-week follow-up than at baseline.

The study shows that anxiety was not associated with incentive conditions, indicating that they were all effective in changing health-related behaviors.

The researchers further found that patient engagement with the mobile health app was high, with 64% of study participants completing all sessions in the program and 39% reporting that they continued to use the app beyond the six-week timeframe.

Not only that, but 68% of participants were also assigned a mean app quality rating greater than four out of five at the three-, six- and 12-week time points during the study.

"In the context of a mental health crisis in young adults and numerous barriers to traditional mental health services, digital interventions represent a promising step toward wider dissemination of high-quality, evidence-based interventions," the researchers concluded.

The study aligns with other research showing the efficacy of digital health tools in enhancing mental healthcare access.

A study published in July 2024 showed that digital health apps targeting depression and anxiety symptoms could support patients experiencing delays in securing initial mental healthcare appointments. The study included 2,079 patients who were 18 or older, had either a scheduled mental health appointment or an initial appointment completed within the past 60 days and had daily access to a smartphone.

Researchers found that, on average, study participants' depression scores decreased by 2.5 points and anxiety scores dropped by 1.5 to 2 points from baseline to the six-week follow-up. Thus, they concluded that though digital mental health apps cannot replace formal services, they can provide an effective stopgap while patients seek in-person care.

Anuja Vaidya has covered the healthcare industry since 2012. She currently covers the virtual healthcare landscape, including telehealth, remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics.