11In this project, strategies will be identified, prototypically implemented, and evaluated to promote and thus increase the effect of apps improving mental health by their active use. Previous experience in this area shows that users often do not use health apps long enough and intensively enough to achieve clinically significant effects.
Since many apps limit themselves to displaying informative texts and collecting self-reported health parameters, the lack of intensity and duration of use does not seem surprising. With this in mind, the project deals with the following question: to what extent can innovative strategies such as gamification (i.e. introduction of playful elements) increase the duration and intensity of use of apps to promote mental health?
It will also be determined whether increasing duration and intensity is accompanied by an improvement in effectiveness within the framework of so-called Approach-Avoidance-Modification-Training (AAMT). This will be investigated in an empirical study on persons with increased stress.