A Local Community-Based Social Network for Mental Health and Well-being (Quokka): Exploratory Feasibility Study

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Background

Developing healthy habits and maintaining prolonged behavior changes are often difficult tasks. Mental health is one of the largest health concerns globally, including for college students.

Objective

Our aim was to conduct an exploratory feasibility study of local community-based interventions by developing Quokka, a web platform promoting well-being activity on university campuses. We evaluated the intervention’s potential for promotion of local, social, and unfamiliar activities pertaining to healthy habits.

Methods

To evaluate this framework’s potential for increased participation in healthy habits, we conducted a 6-to-8-week feasibility study via a “challenge” across 4 university campuses with a total of 277 participants. We chose a different well-being theme each week, and we conducted weekly surveys to (1) gauge factors that motivated users to complete or not complete the weekly challenge, (2) identify participation trends, and (3) evaluate the feasibility of the intervention to promote local, social, and novel well-being activities. We tested the hypotheses that Quokka participants would self-report participation in more local activities than remote activities for all challenges (Hypothesis H1), more social activities than individual activities (Hypothesis H2), and new rather than familiar activities (Hypothesis H3).

Results

After Bonferroni correction using a Clopper-Pearson binomial proportion confidence interval for one test, we found that there was a strong preference for local activities for all challenge themes. Similarly, users significantly preferred group activities over individual activities (P<.001 for most challenge themes). For most challenge themes, there were not enough data to significantly distinguish a preference toward familiar or new activities (P<.001 for a subset of challenge themes in some schools).

Conclusions

We find that local community-based well-being interventions such as Quokka can facilitate positive behaviors. We discuss these findings and their implications for the research and design of location-based digital communities for well-being promotion.

Related collections

Most cited references 91

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

The Health Belief Model: a decade later.

N K Janz, M H Becker (1984)

Since the last comprehensive review in 1974, the Health Belief Model (HBM) has continued to be the focus of considerable theoretical and research attention. This article presents a critical review of 29 HBM-related investigations published during the period of 1974-1984, tabulates the findings from 17 studies conducted prior to 1974, and provides a summary of the total 46 HBM studies (18 prospective, 28 retrospective). Twenty-four studies examined preventive-health behaviors (PHB), 19 explored sick-role behaviors (SRB), and three addressed clinic utilization. A "significance ratio" was constructed which divides the number of positive, statistically-significant findings for an HBM dimension by the total number of studies reporting significance levels for that dimension. Summary results provide substantial empirical support for the HBM, with findings from prospective studies at least as favorable as those obtained from retrospective research. "Perceived barriers" proved to be the most powerful of the HBM dimensions across the various study designs and behaviors. While both were important overall, "perceived susceptibility" was a stronger contributor to understanding PHB than SRB, while the reverse was true for "perceived benefits." "Perceived severity" produced the lowest overall significance ratios; however, while only weakly associated with PHB, this dimension was strongly related to SRB. On the basis of the evidence compiled, it is recommended that consideration of HBM dimensions be a part of health education programming. Suggestions are offered for further research.

0 comments Cited 880 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

Objective User Engagement With Mental Health Apps: Systematic Search and Panel-Based Usage Analysis

Amit Baumel, Frederick Muench, Stav Edan … (2019)

Background Understanding patterns of real-world usage of mental health apps is key to maximizing their potential to increase public self-management of care. Although developer-led studies have published results on the use of mental health apps in real-world settings, no study yet has systematically examined usage patterns of a large sample of mental health apps relying on independently collected data. Objective Our aim is to present real-world objective data on user engagement with popular mental health apps. Methods A systematic engine search was conducted using Google Play to identify Android apps with 10,000 installs or more targeting anxiety, depression, or emotional well-being. Coding of apps included primary incorporated techniques and mental health focus. Behavioral data on real-world usage were obtained from a panel that provides aggregated nonpersonal information on user engagement with mobile apps. Results In total, 93 apps met the inclusion criteria (installs: median 100,000, IQR 90,000). The median percentage of daily active users (open rate) was 4.0% (IQR 4.7%) with a difference between trackers (median 6.3%, IQR 10.2%) and peer-support apps (median 17.0%) versus breathing exercise apps (median 1.6%, IQR 1.6%; all z≥3.42, all P<.001). Among active users, daily minutes of use were significantly higher for mindfulness/meditation (median 21.47, IQR 15.00) and peer support (median 35.08, n=2) apps than for apps incorporating other techniques (tracker, breathing exercise, psychoeducation: medians range 3.53-8.32; all z≥2.11, all P<.05). The medians of app 15-day and 30-day retention rates were 3.9% (IQR 10.3%) and 3.3% (IQR 6.2%), respectively. On day 30, peer support (median 8.9%, n=2), mindfulness/meditation (median 4.7%, IQR 6.2%), and tracker apps (median 6.1%, IQR 20.4%) had significantly higher retention rates than breathing exercise apps (median 0.0%, IQR 0.0%; all z≥2.18, all P≤.04). The pattern of daily use presented a descriptive peak toward the evening for apps incorporating most techniques (tracker, psychoeducation, and peer support) except mindfulness/meditation, which exhibited two peaks (morning and night). Conclusions Although the number of app installs and daily active minutes of use may seem high, only a small portion of users actually used the apps for a long period of time. More studies using different datasets are needed to understand this phenomenon and the ways in which users self-manage their condition in real-world settings.

0 comments Cited 335 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Theories of behaviour and behaviour change across the social and behavioural sciences: a scoping review

Rachel Davis, Rona Campbell, Zoe Hildon … (2014)

Interventions to change health-related behaviours typically have modest effects and may be more effective if grounded in appropriate theory. Most theories applied to public health interventions tend to emphasise individual capabilities and motivation, with limited reference to context and social factors. Intervention effectiveness may be increased by drawing on a wider range of theories incorporating social, cultural and economic factors that influence behaviour. The primary aim of this paper is to identify theories of behaviour and behaviour change of potential relevance to public health interventions across four scientific disciplines: psychology, sociology, anthropology and economics. We report in detail the methodology of our scoping review used to identify these theories including which involved a systematic search of electronic databases, consultation with a multidisciplinary advisory group, web searching, searching of reference lists and hand searching of key behavioural science journals. Of secondary interest we developed a list of agreed criteria for judging the quality of the theories. We identified 82 theories and 9 criteria for assessing theory quality. The potential relevance of this wide-ranging number of theories to public health interventions and the ease and usefulness of evaluating the theories in terms of the quality criteria are however yet to be determined.

0 comments Cited 310 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Peter Washington:

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3276-4411

Department of BioengineeringStanford University1265 Welch RdStanford, CA, 94305United States1 5126800926peterwashington@stanford.edu

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): JMIRx Med

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): JMIRx Med

Journal ID (publisher-id): JMIRxMed

Title: JMIRx Med

Publisher: JMIR Publications (Toronto, Canada )

ISSN (Electronic): 2563-6316

Publication date Collection: Oct-Dec 2021

Publication date (Electronic): 27 October 2021

Volume: 2

Issue: 4

Electronic Location Identifier: e24972

Affiliations

[1 ] Quokka Palo Alto, CA United States

[2 ] Department of Computer Science University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA United States

[3 ] Department of Cognitive Science University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA United States

[4 ] Department of Bioengineering Stanford University Stanford, CA United States

Author notes

Corresponding Author: Peter Washington peterwashington@ 123456stanford.edu

Author information

Cynthia Shih https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5571-4348

Ruhi Pudipeddi https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7431-1360

Arany Uthayakumar https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8972-3365

Peter Washington https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3276-4411

Article

Publisher ID: v2i4e24972

DOI: 10.2196/24972

PMC ID: 10414255

PubMed ID: 37725541

SO-VID: 130b898f-1332-4506-8959-03dd2e8f8d8f

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIRx Med, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://med.jmirx.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

History

Date received : 12 October 2020

Date revision requested : 21 November 2020

Date revision received : 30 March 2021

Date accepted : 25 July 2021

Comments

Comment on this article

Cited by 8

See all cited by

Most referenced authors 734

See all reference authors

Submit your digital health research with an established publisher
- celebrating 25 years of open access