Social and non-social cognitive behavioural therapy strategies for depression: findings from the MoodMission smartphone application

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based treatment of depression that can include strategies with a social component. Mental health apps (MHapps) are widely used amongst individuals with depression to access CBT strategies. Despite the research on CBT, it is not clear whether there is a difference in the correlation of CBT strategies for depression with a social component or not. Using MoodMission, an empirically validated MHapp that recommends CBT strategies (termed “Missions”), this study investigated whether social or non-social CBT strategies would correlate with participants’ ratings of helpfulness and distress reduction. Method A total of 4,107 participants who completed at least one social or non-social Mission and baseline 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) were included. Multilevel modelling with 2-levels was used, with level 1 entered as the fixed effect between Mission type in predicting subjective helpfulness and distress reduction, and level 2 entered as the random effects of participant covariates of age, gender, and PHQ-9 scores. Results Findings indicated that Missions without a social component was a significant positive predictor in distress reduction, but there was no significant difference in predicting subjective helpfulness. Conclusion These findings suggest that individuals with depression using MHapps could benefit from engaging in non-social CBT strategies for the reduction of subjective distress, more so than social CBT strategies. Study limitations included the self-report study design, subjective outcome measures, and a higher representation of female (80.6%) participants. Further research is required to investigate the clinical significance of these findings with a more representative sample.