Adolescent Perspectives on How an Adjunctive Mobile App for Social Anxiety Treatment Impacts Treatment Engagement in Telehealth Group Therapy

Abstract

Adjunctive mobile mental health apps to supplement mental health treatment have been growing in recent years given their ability to address treatment engagement barriers. However, few studies have explicitly examined how these mobile apps impact treatment engagement, and even fewer have investigated this topic through adolescents’ perspectives. To this end, we conducted semi-structured interviews with five adolescents who used an adjunctive mobile mental health app in combination with telehealth cognitive behavioral group therapy for social anxiety. Using a multidimensional framework of treatment engagement, we elicited their perspectives on how the app impacted their engagement in telehealth group therapy and gathered their suggestions for improving the app. Using a consensual qualitative research approach, we learned that adolescents felt the app increased their comfort with others in therapy and their expectations about the effectiveness of mental health apps. They also indicated that the app prepared them for in-session participation and facilitated out-of-session skills practice. Adolescents had valuable suggestions such as adding app features to facilitate social connectedness between group members and adding appointment reminders in the app. This preliminary study highlights implications for future adjunctive mobile mental health app developers and researchers to increase adolescents’ treatment engagement in mental health services.