Avaliação da utilidade e eficácia percebida da aplicação ‘MoodMission’ por uma amostra de adultos da população portuguesa

Abstract

The present study intended to evaluate the perceived usefulness and effectiveness of the“MoodMission” app with a sample of adults from the Portuguese population. MoodMissionis an educational app that offers strategies based on evidences of Cognitive BehavioralTherapy, its aim is to help manage stress and anxiety and depressive symptoms. On the onehand, the goals of this study are to explore the impact of usage of this app, on a clinical groupand on a community group, also evaluating its differences between pre e post utilization. Onthe other hand, explore the perceptions of the individuals regarding the use of the app. It isa longitudinal with a mixed and methodology, participation in this study encompassed twomoments of assessment and delivered the respective instruments. In the first moment, thesocio-demographic questionnaire was applied and in the second the “Questionnaire ofinformation about the MoodMission app”, in both times it was also applied the “Escala deAnsiedade e Depressão Hospitalar”. Between these two moments, the participants wereasked to use the app for 30 days. The sample has 26 adults, having been later divided intotwo groups, clinical (with a diagnosis of anxiety and/or depression) and community (nodiagnosis). After collecting the data from the two evaluation moments, we investigated thedifferences in symptoms between T1 and T2, but also between groups, we also tried tounderstand the changes in well-being levels and whether the groups had any impact in thosechanges regarding their experience using the app. No differences statistically significantwere found in terms of symptoms of anxiety and depression in both evaluation moments.Furthermore, no differences were found between the groups in terms of symptoms ofanxiety. However, there were found statistically significant differences in terms ofdepressive symptoms, stressing the importance of the relevance of the belonging group indepressive symptomatology, in the first evaluation moment. In terms of the perceptions ofthe app MoodMission, benefits were found regarding the missions suggested by the app, butalso its accessibility, simplicity and originality. Despite its limitations, this study contributedto a better understanding of the psychological benefits of using the MoodMission app.

Date of Award	17 Dec 2021
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Susana Costa Ramalho (Supervisor)