A Smartphone Serious Game for Adolescents (Grow It! App): Development, Feasibility, and Acceptance Study

Evelien Dietvorst; Michelle A Aukes; Jeroen S Legerstee; Annabel Vreeker; Micah M Hrehovcsik; Loes Keijsers; Manon H J Hillegers

doi:10.2196/29832

journal article Mar 03, 2022

A Smartphone Serious Game for Adolescents (Grow It! App): Development, Feasibility, and Acceptance Study

Evelien Dietvorst

JMIR Formative Research Vol. 6 No. 3 pp. e29832 · JMIR Publications Inc.

View at Publisher Save 10.2196/29832

Abstract

Background
Anxiety and mood problems in adolescents often go unnoticed and may therefore remain untreated. Identifying and preventing the development of emotional problems requires monitoring and effective tools to strengthen adolescents' resilience, for example, by enhancing coping skills.

Objective
This study describes the developmental process, feasibility, and acceptance of Grow It!, a multiplayer serious game app for adolescents aged 12-25 years. The app consists of the experience sampling method (ESM) to monitor thoughts, behaviors, and emotions in daily life to enhance self-insight and daily cognitive behavioral therapy–based challenges to promote adaptive coping.

Methods
Our approach entails an iterative game design process combined with an agile method to develop the smartphone app. The incorporated game features (ie, challenges, chat functionality, and visual representation) in the Grow It! app were co-designed with adolescent end users to increase participant engagement and adherence.

Results
The Grow It! app was delivered for Android and iOS in May 2020. Grow It! was offered to adolescents during the COVID-19 crisis between May and December 2020. Participants of the Grow It! COVID-19 study (sample 1: N=685; mean age 16.19, SD 3.11 years; 193/685, 28.2% boys; sample 2: N=1035; mean age 18.78, SD 3.51 years; 193/1035, 18.64% boys) completed 31.5% (13.2/42) to 49.5% (10.4/21) of challenges. Compliance of ESM was suboptimal (35.1/210, 16.7% to 32.5/105, 30.9%). Follow-up questionnaires indicated an overall score of the app of 7.1 out of 10. Moreover, 72.6% (278/383) to 75.6% (487/644) would recommend the app to friends.

Conclusions
To our knowledge, Grow It! is the first gamified ESM app that both measures individual differences in emotional dynamics and offers an integrated cognitive behavioral therapy–based intervention. Our findings support the feasibility and acceptance, and therefore applicability, of the Grow It! app in adolescents. Further iterations of this serious game app will focus on the increase of compliance and on providing participants feedback through their personal mood profiles.

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Published: Mar 03, 2022
Vol/Issue: 6(3)
Pages: e29832

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Cite This Article

Evelien Dietvorst, Michelle A Aukes, Jeroen S Legerstee, et al. (2022). A Smartphone Serious Game for Adolescents (Grow It! App): Development, Feasibility, and Acceptance Study. JMIR Formative Research, 6(3), e29832. https://doi.org/10.2196/29832

A Smartphone Serious Game for Adolescents (Grow It! App): Development, Feasibility, and Acceptance Study

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