Feasibility study of a mobile application (ACT-ON) to complement acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) intervention in cancer patients.

OBJECTIVE: Psychological and physical distress commonly affect cancer patients. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has shown promising results when it comes to ameliorating symptoms that may develop as a result of this. Meanwhile, it has come to light that the impact of psychological interventions may be enhanced by the use of mobile applications. However, to date no mobile applications have been developed to support ACT-based interventions in cancer patients. The aim of the present study is to develop and test the usability of a mobile application designed to complement face-to-face ACT-based therapy in a group of cancer patients undergoing treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of thirty-nine patients were recruited to participate in this pilot study. Participants had to be: 18 years of age or over, currently undergoing treatment for breast, lung or colorectal cancer, in stage I-III, a smartphone user with daily internet access. The intervention sessions were administered for a period of eight weeks, one hour per week to groups of four to six participants. Patients had the ACT-ON mobile application at their disposal, which provided them with access to therapy-related activities: mindfulness, metaphors and exercises to clarify values. RESULTS: The application obtained adequate adoption (61.54%) and usage (54.17%) rates. Usability and ease of learning scores were as follows: good usability (M = 79.81, SD = 11.87); high usability (M = 80.53, SD = 14.04); ease of learning (M = 37.5, SD = 23.85). DISCUSSION: This is the first study to develop and evaluate the usability of an application designed to support ACT-based interventions in cancer patients undergoing treatment. The results show that the ACT-ON app is a feasible tool which achieves high levels of usability. However, said results ought to be confirmed by studies that include a larger number of cancer patients.

Effectiveness of Mindfulness and Positive Strengthening mHealth Interventions for the Promotion of Subjective Emotional Wellbeing and Management of Self-Efficacy for Chronic Cardiac Diseases.

Intervention in health prevention and treatment via mobile phones is becoming a key element on health promotion. Testing the efficacy of these mobile health (mHealth) psychological interventions for cardiovascular health is necessary as it is a chronic pathology, and it can influence the affective and cognitive states of patients. This research aimed to analyze the effectiveness of two brief psychological interventions-mindfulness and positive strengthening-to promote subjective emotional wellbeing and disease management self-efficacy using mHealth. This was a three-arm intervention and feasibility study, with a pre-post design and three follow-up measures with 105 patients (93 completed all phases) with cardiovascular diseases. Group 1 and 2 received the mindfulness or strengthening intervention, and Group 3 was the control group. The positive-negative affect and management self-efficacy for chronic and cardiovascular diseases were analyzed over time, while anxiety and depression levels were assessed at the beginning of the study. The results showed that mindfulness and positive strengthening interventions both had a positive effect on participants' affective state and management self-efficacy for the disease in comparison with the control group over time, even after controlling for baseline anxiety and depression levels. Positive strengthening seems to be more effective for improving cardiac self-efficacy, while mindfulness practice was significantly more effective at reducing negative affect at the first face-to-face evaluation.