title: Development and initial evaluation of a smartphone application based on acceptance and commitment therapy.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  An intervention, consisting of an ACT-based smartphone-application and a web-based psychoeducation, has been developed. The smartphone-application, together with the psychoeducation, aims to function as a self-help intervention for living consistently with one's values. The study is an exploratory investigation of this new smartphone-based tool.
  
  
  METHODS
  Primarily, the study aims at investigating a new field, providing a basis for generating hypotheses for further research. The first aim of this initial, exploratory study was to examine if this intervention had an effect on the variables of: valued actions, psychological flexibility, and life satisfaction as well as the states of depression, anxiety and stress, for a non-clinical sample of 11 Swedish Iphone users. This was made with a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design without control group. The second aim was to investigate how the participants experienced the intervention, as measured by a qualitative questionnaire.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The group analyses showed that the participants increased their valued action and psychological flexibility significantly during the intervention. Furthermore, value-based actions and psychological flexibility showed small effect sizes when comparing pretest and posttest score. However, the design of the study makes it impossible to draw any certain conclusions. The qualitative questionnaire showed a general positive experience of the intervention.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results from the present study indicated that the intervention should be studied further. The findings also generated a number of hypotheses that could be investigated in further research.
authors: Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Campus Valla, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden ; Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, von Kraemers allé 1A-C, 751 42 Uppsala, Sweden.
authors: Kien Hoa
authors: KH
authors: Ly
authors: Joanne
authors: J
authors: Dahl
authors: Per
authors: P
authors: Carlbring
authors: Gerhard
authors: G
authors: Andersson
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