• DOI:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00959
• Corpus ID: 210867129

Commentary: A Pilot Digital Intervention Targeting Loneliness in Youth Mental Health

@article{Allen2019CommentaryAP,
  title={Commentary: A Pilot Digital Intervention Targeting Loneliness in Youth Mental Health},
  author={Kelly-Ann Allen},
  journal={Frontiers in Psychiatry},
  year={2019},
  volume={10}
}

• Kelly-Ann Allen
• Published 24 January 2020
• Psychology
• Frontiers in Psychiatry

Positive relationships are fundamental to our physical and psychological health and wellbeing, yet loneliness is now estimated to affect one in four members of the general population to the detriment of their physical and psychological health (1–4). To combat rising rates of loneliness, a number of interventions are available that focus on increasing social connections. However, as Lim et al. (5) suggests, increasing the quantity of relationships is not, by itself, enough. In order to improve feelings of loneliness, it is also necessary to address the quality of relationships. This is the central aim of the +Connect smartphone app. The pilot of +Connect offers exciting preliminary insights into the delivery of an intervention for loneliness in young adults (5). However, design choices in a number of areas—including the digital platform used in the intervention and a focus on current relationships—set boundaries on the utility of the current iteration of the app. I argue that these additional considerations should be reflected upon in the design of future iterations of this app and that Lim and colleagues (5) can fruitfully draw from empirical work in related areas (e.g., belonging, social skills, cognitive-based interventions, and motivation) to create more diverse and tailored offerings.

An Intervention for Loneliness
+Connect (5) was created as a 6-week digital intervention program with the goal of a) targeting loneliness by improving relationship quality among young adults with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and b) extending past research (6, 7). The pilot intervention employs a positive psychology approach to help young adults identify their strengths, increase their positive affect, and focus on building intimacy within existing relationships. The intervention yielded positive results, proving to be beneficial. An impressive 75%–100% of participants with SAD reported +Connect to be helpful. However, the researchers also noted a high attrition rate for participants with SAD, which was almost double the rate of those without the disorder (5).

An important strength of the app is its use of shared experience videos. The designers of the app have identified and made valuable use of an opportunity to normalize the experience of loneliness as a commonly occurring human emotion. This insight offers an alternative perspective to recent scholarly work that has sought to pathologize loneliness (8).

Another strength is that the app offers an alternative to medical approaches that posit that loneliness is a condition that requires pharmaceutical treatment (9). +Connect provides a non-medical, psychologically based intervention that offers users skills that also benefit the general population, irrespective of their mental health status or even whether they are lonely or not (5).