Can Acceptance, Mindfulness, and Self-Compassion Be Learned by Smartphone Apps? A Systematic and Meta-Analytic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials
Section snippets
Search Strategy and Study Selection
Three major online databases (PsycINFO, Medline, and Cochrane database of randomized controlled trials) were searched in December 2018 (and updated in March 2019) using the following search terms: smartphone* OR “mobile phone” OR “cell phone” OR “mobile app*” OR iphone OR android OR mhealth OR m-health OR “cellular phone” OR “mobile device*” OR mobile-based OR “mobile health” OR tablet-based AND random* OR trial* OR allocat* AND mindful* OR accept* OR ACT OR meditate* OR compass*. Reference
Results
A flowchart of the literature search is presented in Figure 1. Twenty-seven RCTs, with 31 app-supported smartphone intervention conditions, met full inclusion criteria. Most trials delivered an app that was entirely based on mindfulness and acceptance interventions, and one trial delivered an app that was entirely based on compassion-focused principles. The other trials (k = 7) delivered multicomponent apps (i.e., contained some components of acceptance, mindfulness, or compassion among other
Discussion
Accumulating research indicates that learning acceptance, mindfulness, and self-compassion skills are temporally and causally linked with mental health and well-being improvements (Gu et al., 2015, Wahl et al., 2013). However, interventions that teach these principles usually rely on face-to-face contact with a therapist, which can limit their dissemination (Kazdin, 2017). Translating these interventions for delivery via smartphone devices has the potential to overcome these issues of
Conflict of Interest Statement
The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest.
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