Gamification in Stress Management Apps: A Critical App Review

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Behavioral Science
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Stress is a significant health concern, making stress management crucial.
• Behavior change programs increasingly target stress.
• Gamification is proposed for health behavior change, but its application in stress management apps is unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate gamification techniques in stress management apps.
• To examine the co-occurrence of gamification with stress management methods.
• To assess the integration of gamification with behavior change techniques.

Main Methods:

• Reviewed 62 stress management apps from Google Play.
• Assessed the presence of 17 gamification techniques, 15 stress management methods, and 26 behavior change techniques.
• Utilized an extended taxonomy of gamification techniques with two independent raters.

Main Results:

• High interrater reliability (AC=.97).
• Apps averaged only 0.5 gamification techniques.
• No significant correlations found between gamification and behavior change techniques (r=.17) or stress management methods (r=.14).

Conclusions:

• Stress management app designers are not leveraging gamification to influence user behavior.
• There is a lack of integration between gamification and established behavior change theories in these apps.
• Potential benefits of combining gamification with behavior change principles remain untapped.