Experiences and implications of smartphone apps for depression and anxiety

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2249708
AutoresLiam Crosby (0000-0003-4643-3701, Institute of Epidemiology and Healthcare University College London London UK, autor correspondente), Oliver Bonnington (0000-0001-5389-4042, Faculty of Public Health and Policy London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London UK)
Ano2020
Volume42
Fascículo4
Páginas925-942
Data de publicação2020-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9566.13076
PMID32162706
OpenAlexW3011511619
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas8
Referências citadas48

Apps on smartphones are increasingly used for self-care for depression and anxiety, yet how and why they are accessed, and their social effects, remain under-investigated. Sociologists have begun to theorise how these technologies affect and relate; crucial questions for a contemporary sociology of health. This study seeks to contribute to our conceptualisation of how digital health technologies are implicated in health by investigating the motivations, experiences and relations of people using mobile apps for depression or anxiety. We interviewed 14 individuals living in England with a diagnosis of depression or an anxiety disorder, who used smartphone apps as part of self-care. Analysis followed a thematic approach. Three themes were identified. Apps exist within relational contexts - alongside smartphones, beliefs about mental health and other support - which shape app use and lead to an imprecise, casual approach. People engage with apps in a straightforward and uncomplicated manner, leading to immediate symptomatic alleviation, but to limited longer term benefit. The contradiction between the apps' promise as tools of individual empowerment, with their ability to promote responsibilising frameworks that restrain users' reflexivity, is central to their implications. Apps can thus contribute to isolation from interpersonal support and promote reductionist biomedical conceptualisations of mental ill health

Anxiety · Empowerment · Internet privacy · Mental health · Psychiatry · Psychotherapist · Qualitative research · Reductionism · Reflexivity · Social science · Sociology · Thematic analysis · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics · Computer Science · Digital Mental Health Interventions · Impact of Technology on Adolescents · Psychology