PopTherapy: Coping with stress through pop-culture

Pablo Paredes, Ran Gilad-Bachrach, Mary Czerwinski, Asta Roseway, Kael Rowan, Javier Hernandez

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Stress is considered to be a modern day "global epidemic"; so given the widespread nature of this problem, it would be beneficial if solutions that help people to learn how to cope better with stress were scalable beyond what individual or group therapies can provide today. Therefore, in this work, we study the potential of smart-phones as a pervasive medium to provide therapy for the general population - "popular therapy". The work melds two novel contributions: first, a micro-intervention authoring process that focuses on repurposing popular web applications as stress management interventions; and second, a machine-learning based intervention recommender system that learns how to match interventions to individuals and their temporal circumstances over time. After four weeks, participants in our user study reported higher self-awareness of stress, lower depression-related symptoms and having learned new simple ways to deal with stress. Furthermore, participants receiving the machine-learning recommendations without option to select different ones showed a tendency towards using more constructive coping behaviors.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - PERVASIVEHEALTH 2014
Subtitle of host publication8th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare
EditorsSusanne Boll, Friedrich Kohler
PublisherICST
Pages109-117
Number of pages9
ISBN (Electronic)9781631900112
DOIs
StatePublished - 23 Jul 2014
Externally publishedYes
Event8th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, PERVASIVEHEALTH 2014 - Oldenburg, Germany
Duration: 20 May 201423 May 2014

Publication series

NameProceedings - PERVASIVEHEALTH 2014: 8th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare

Conference

Conference8th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, PERVASIVEHEALTH 2014
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityOldenburg
Period20/05/1423/05/14

Keywords

  • Behavior change
  • Contextual
  • Coping
  • Crowd therapy
  • Depression
  • Interventions
  • Learning
  • Machine learning
  • Mental health
  • Mobile
  • Pervasive
  • Recommender
  • Stress
  • Stress awareness

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Information Systems
  • Health Informatics
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Computer Science Applications

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