Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychiatric problems in youth, fail to spontaneously remit, and place some youth at risk for additional behavioral and emotional difficulties. Efforts to target anxiety have resulted in evidence-based interventions but the resulting prevention effects are relatively small, often weakening over time. Mobile health (mHealth) tools could be of use to strengthen the effects of anxiety prevention efforts. Although a large number of mHealth apps have been developed, few have been evaluated in terms of usability prior to clinical effectiveness testing. Because usability is one of the main barriers to mHealth usage and adoption, …

BACKGROUND:

One barrier to effectively treating weight issues among adolescents is that they tend to use social comparison instead of objective measures to evaluate their own health status. When adolescents correctly perceive themselves as overweight, they are more likely to adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors.

OBJECTIVE:

The purpose of this pilot test was to develop and assess acceptability and usability of an avatar-based, theoretically derived mobile app entitled Monitor Your Avatar (MYA).

METHODS:

The MYA app was engineered for high school adolescents to identify, using avatars, what they thought they looked like, what they wanted to look like, and what they …