MoodBooster - A Gamified App to Support Stress Reduction in University Students

Abstract

Mental health has become an important topic in recent years and can be considered a risk factor for contracting so-called non-communicable diseases (NCDs). These diseases, especially cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes, are not spread through infection or other people but are caused by unhealthy behaviors. This work focuses on mental health for university students. Studies have shown that this target group can be particularly susceptible to stress and stress-related symptoms because they have to deal with academic pressure, separation respectively, individuation from their families, work, and tight financial situations. Therefore, the authors of this work propose “MoodBooster,” an application to support stress management for university students. It includes features like tracking stressful events, educational content, and several mini-serious games, two of which were prototypically implemented to help with stress reduction. Serious Games are games that also serve purposes other than pure entertainment and are successful with behavior change in their users. The prototype was evaluated within the target group, and the feedback was mostly positive. Players especially found the included serious games helpful for stress reduction, entertaining, and easy to grasp.