Alexz Farrall
University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom
Digital interventions are often used to support people with mental health conditions, but low engagement frequently reduces their effectiveness. We investigate the use of a Physical Artefact for Well-being Support (PAWS) to improve engagement and effectiveness of an audio-only guided well-being intervention. Through our handheld shape-changing biofeedback-based PAWS, users can synchronously feel their breath via kinaesthetic haptic feedback. By evaluating our device in a randomised-controlled experimental paradigm (N=58), we demonstrate significant reductions in physiological and subjective (self-reported) anxiety compared to an audio-only control. Our findings conclude that synchronous interactions with one‘s own physiological data via the PAWS, improves engagement and effectiveness of an intervention.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581188
The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (https://chi2023.acm.org/)