designing and evaluating a smartphone-based cognitive behavioral therapy to control anxiety and depression

Introduction: depression and anxiety are prevailing mental health disorders. the presence of several barriers in face-to-face approaches for treating these diseases and the emergence of numerous post-pharmacotherapy complications have made researchers embark on removing barriers in treating these diseases. the research on mental healthcare aiming to develop non-pharmaceutical treatments has presented and evaluated many approaches. one of these approaches is cognitive-behavioral therapy (cbt), which is effective in depression and anxiety treatment. this study aimed to design and evaluate a psychological program based on cbt and smartphones to control and alleviate the symptoms of anxiety and depression.material and methods: this study was framed into a 10-session randomized control trial with the assistance of psychologists and valid scientific books. it was designed and implemented in the form of an applied smartphone-based program. after selecting 45 samples and assigning them to intervention and control groups, the researchers examined the effect of the application-based cbt on patients’ depression and anxiety, then analyzed the results with statistical tests with spss software.results: after the intervention, the data normality was confirmed by statistical analyses. then, the paired t-test was used to analyze the pre-intervention and post-intervention data on anxiety and depression and the results were obtained with (p=0.001) and (p=0.002) respectively. according to the results, there was a significant difference between the results of the intervention group before and after using the software, while the control group manifested no significant differences.conclusion: with its user-centered approach, this software develops a mobile health (mhealth) program that improves and controls anxiety and depression by providing an efficient therapeutic method within a self-care program and removing spatial and temporal barriers.