Conception and realization of a mobile data acquisition and assistance application for intersession processes of patients in psychotherapeutic treatments at the example of the iOS platform

Conventional effectiveness and impact factor studies in psychotherapy research deal mainly with the therapy session per se. In contrast, a current trend is the increasing focus on patient advancement between therapy sessions, the so-called intersession processes. Traditionally, patient data is collected and evaluated in the form of paper questionnaires. In the context of intersession research, where this is done just prior to the therapy session, this means that their results often can not be properly included immediately afterwards. With the proliferation of mobile devices such as smartphones, tablet computers, and wearables, mobile crowd sensing is a promising approach for capturing and analyzing large amounts of distributed data. This is attributed to the fact that modern mobile devices are equipped with unprecedented sensing, computing, and communication capabilities that allow them to perform complex tasks and provide countless possibilities for user interactions. Contemporaneous, in the course of digitization, both the topic of electronic health and mobile health (mHealth) are gaining increasingly more importance in the healthcare industry. Furthermore, simple and efficient interaction with mobile applications, as well as the exchange of information between the health care provider, here the therapist, and the patients, are essential aspects in applications in the mHealth field. Properly implemented, this can both improve and simplify the patient's treatment process.

Within the scope of this thesis, in cooperation with the Institute of Psychology of the University of Klagenfurt, a mHealth application is developed, which allows to scientifically record intersession processes of patients in psychotherapeutic treatments. The patient automatically receives questionnaires via the mobile application, depending on therapy session dates and the results of previous evaluations, as well as manual interventions by the therapist. Thus, it should be significantly easier and more efficient for the therapist to collect and evaluate data on the patient's intersession processes and to prepare in advance for the upcoming therapy session.