EMORI Mobile App for Emotion Regulation – Prototype Approbation

Description

The use of mobile apps interventions is rapidly growing in psychological care, including for various topics related to emotions. EMORI is a Latvian mobile app prototype aiming to assess emotion regulation skills (providing feedback to the user) and offer art therapy-based and psychological exercises for improving those skills. EMORI was created as a research project by a team of researchers from three Latvian Universities (Rīga Stradiņš University, Latvian Academy of Arts, Ventspils University). The aim of the project was to create a digital psychological intervention in the Latvian language. The objective of this study was 1) before programming the app, to check whether the intervention improves the participants' emotion regulation (ER) skills, 2) to collect opinions and impressions of experts and users of this app.. In a pilot study, 34 participants received an intervention protocol via e-mail and independently completed three weeks of mood monitoring, art-based exercises using Infinite Painter and PicJointer apps. Participants also wrote a diary. Differences in ER skills before and after the intervention were determined using the Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire (ERSQ, Berking & Znoj, 2008). In the second stage of the research, six experts and six users evaluated the EMORI prototype, semi-structured interviews were conducted.. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to evaluate the differences in ER skills before and after the intervention. The results indicate that there are a statistically significant differences in several ERSQ scales: acceptance (W=311.5, p=.003), understanding (W=302, p=.001), modification (W=202, p=.045), total ER skills (W=500.5, p=.001). The app's content received positive evaluations from experts, and overall feedback from app users was also positive.. Approbation of the EMORI prototype is only in its early stages, but results show improvement in some ER skills. EMORI can serve as a support tool for emotion regulation, and its development should continue.

Period	30 Mar 2023
Event title	RSU Research Week 2023: Research Week 2023 Rīga Stradiņš University
Event type	Conference
Organiser	Riga Stradins University
Location	Riga, LatviaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International