Psychologist logo

Managing your anxiety

The SAM App, developed by the University of the West of England.

26 February 2015

The Self-Help for Anxiety Management (SAM for short) app aims to ‘help you understand and manage anxiety’. From the perspective of someone with experience of mental health apps and websites through my research I believe this is one of the better ones. The usability aspect is often overlooked in favour of replicating an established intervention. This can often lead to low levels of adherence, especially when there is minimal therapist contact. The app is easy to use and intuitive, moving the user from information about using the app to information about their anxiety. The self-help aspect is clear, with the toolkit allowing tailoring of preferred techniques, and the concept of tracking anxiety useful. My only concern is there needs to be more clarity about the function and use of the ‘Social Cloud’ for users, especially emphasising that it is an unmoderated peer-to-peer network.

I  Reviewed by Aislinn Bergin who is a postgraduate research student in the Centre for Psychological Therapies in Primary Care, University of Chester