Use of a mHealth Mobile Application to Reduce Stress in Adults with Autism: a Pre-Post Pilot Study of the Stress Autism Mate (SAM)

Abstract

Objectives: Adults with autism often need support to detect their stress and to apply adequate coping strategies for dealing with daily stress. The personalized mobile application Stress Autism Mate (SAM) is developed for and by adults with autism to detect and cope with daily life stress. SAM measures stress four times daily, generates an overview of the patients’ stress level and gives personalized advice to reduce stress. Methods: With a pre-to post-treatment design, the level of perceived stress, coping self-efficacy and self-rated quality of life (QoL) was assessed at baseline (pre-test), after the four-week intervention (post-test) and after eight-week follow-up. Data was analysed using multilevel analysis taking within subject variance into account. Results: At post-test measurement, there was a significant decrease in perceived stress. At post-test as well as follow-up, a significant improvement in coping self-efficacy and improvement in self-rated QoL was seen. Conclusions: The results of this pilot study suggest that the personalized mHealth tool SAM can support adults with autism in detecting stress, improving their stress coping skills and improving their self-rated quality of life. In practice, SAM can be seen as an external stress monitor that can easily be integrated in the lives of adults with autism, to detect and cope with stress.