Roles of Web, mobile and monitoring technologies in personalized management of psychophysiological wellbeing

Sustained mental stress and insufficient recovery from daily psychological and physical strain may lead to depression and somatic illnesses. Early intervention and self-management have the potential to improve wellbeing and decrease the disease burden related to mental ill-health. We have developed a service concept consisting of psychological intervention methods and personal health technologies to support personalized and self-paced self-management of psychophysiological wellbeing, especially stress and recovery, sleep, and exercise. The personal health technologies - a Web portal, mobile applications, and monitoring technologies - form a toolkit for supporting psychological intervention, self-assessment and analysis, planning and implementation of behavioural changes, and self-monitoring. This approach enables matching the intervention and tools to the personal health concerns, needs and preferences of the individuals. The Web technologies enable longer intervention sessions with in-depth analysis, rich feedback and intelligent guidance, whereas mobile technologies provide location and time independent access to the service and self-monitoring tools. The service and technologies are currently being evaluated in two trials: 1) a small three-month randomized controlled trial with 25 middle-aged subjects with mild depression, divided into a technology group (N=12) and a waiting list control (N=13), and 2) a pilot with 23 entrepreneurs suffering from work stress. The objective of the end user trials is to study the usability, acceptance, and effectiveness of the concept. We will study the feasibility of the toolkit approach, and the mutual roles of Web, mobile, and measurement technologies. The preliminary results indicated a higher willingness to accept mobile and wearable measurement technologies than Web services.