Developing Mental or Behavioral Health Mobile Apps for Pilot Studies by Leveraging Survey Platforms: A Do-it-Yourself Process

Background Behavioral health researchers are increasingly recognizing the potential of mobile phone apps to deliver empirically supported treatments. However, current options for developing apps typically require large amounts of expertise or money. Objective This paper aims to describe a pragmatic do-it-yourself approach for researchers to create and pilot an Android mobile phone app using existing survey software (eg, Qualtrics survey platform). Methods This study was conducted at an academic research center in the United States focused on developing and evaluating behavioral health technologies. The process outlined in this paper was derived and condensed from the steps to building an existing app intervention, iCanThrive, which was developed to enhance mental well-being in women cancer survivors. Results This paper describes an inexpensive, practical process that uses a widely available survey software, such as Qualtrics, to create and pilot a mobile phone intervention that is presented to participants as a Web viewer app that is downloaded from the Google Play store. Health researchers who are interested in using this process to pilot apps are encouraged to inquire about the survey platforms available to them, the level of security those survey platforms provide, and the regulatory guidelines set forth by their institution. Conclusions As app interventions continue to gain interest among researchers and consumers alike, it is important to find new ways to efficiently develop and pilot app interventions before committing a large amount of resources. Mobile phone app interventions are an important component to discovering new ways to reach and support individuals with behavioral or mental health disorders.