Citation

Halamová J, Mihaľo J, Bakoš L. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022; 19(21): e13759.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph192113759

PMID

36360637

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our daily lives and restricted access to traditional psychological interventions. Hence there is an immediate and growing demand for accessible and scalable mental health solutions. Emotion-focused training for self-compassion and self-protection was developed and distributed using mobile phone technologies, and its effectiveness was tested. The available research sample consisted of 97 participants with a mean age of 26.06 years and a standard deviation of 10.53. Participants using the mobile app underwent a 14-day program aimed at reducing self-criticism while increasing self-compassion and self-protection. Pre- and post-measurements were collected. The results showed a statistically significant medium effect on self-compassion, self-criticism, and self-protection performance and a significant small effect on self-protection distress. The finding that a 14-day mobile app was able to foster well-being in the form of self-compassion, self-protection, and self-criticism is promising. It indicates the potential for individuals to obtain help through the use of remote tools such as MHapps for a fraction of the usual cost, at their own pace, and without other restrictions.

Language: en

Keywords

emotion-focused therapy; MHapps; Mhealth; mobile app; self-compassion; self-criticism; self-protection