Naturalistic evaluation of a sport-themed mental health and wellbeing app aimed at men (MindMax), that incorporates applied video games and gamification

INTRODUCTION: While men display lower help-seeking rates than women, there is a lack of mental health interventions targeting men. To address this issue, we developed a smartphone app named MindMax, an Australian Football League (AFL)-themed app containing psychoeducational modules teaching strategies derived from positive psychology and acceptance and commitment therapy. MindMax also incorporates gamification, casual video games, and social connection and is intended to appeal to male Australians interested in AFL. This study reports results from a naturalistic trial intended to investigate whether using MindMax was associated with improved wellbeing, resilience, and help-seeking intentions. METHODS: We conducted a naturalistic trial from July 2017 to May 2018, where participants were given access to MindMax to use as they wished, and asked to answer wellbeing surveys at multiple time points. As we employed a customised version of the General Help-Seeking Questionnaire (GHSQ), we conducted an exploratory factor analysis and extracted two factors that we interpreted as ‘personal help-seeking’ and ‘impersonal help-seeking’. Mixed design MANOVAs were conducted with flourishing, resilience, personal help-seeking, impersonal help-seeking, relatedness, and sense of connection (self-group overlap) to the MindMax community to assess change between Day 1–30 and Day 1–60. RESULTS: 313 participants (174/313, 55.6% female; 131/313, 41.9% male) completed the survey at baseline and at least one follow-up survey. We observed significant 30-day and 60-day increases in impersonal help-seeking intentions and sense of connection to the MindMax community, and 60-day increases in flourishing. 30-day increases in sense of connection were highest in our male participants with high base wellbeing, present in our female participants, and not present in our male participants with low base wellbeing. 60-day increases in sense of connection were higher in high-wellbeing participants than in low-wellbeing participants. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: Our findings are encouraging as they could be attributed to participants' exposure to MindMax. However, they could also be attributed to other factors that may also have motivated trial participation. Future research can consider investigating more explicitly the role of conformity to masculine norms and how that may affect uptake of mHealth technologies and help-seeking behaviour.