New Research Demonstrates The Effectiveness Of stem4’s Clear Fear App In Helping Young People Manage Anxiety
We are excited to share that a research study has recently been published demonstrating the effectiveness of the Clear Fear app in helping young people manage anxiety. The app was found to be usable, acceptable, safe, and effective in helping young people to manage symptoms of anxiety, as well as depression and emotional and behavioural difficulties. The app was also well-received by the young people who took part.
While these results confirm what we at stem4 have already known (from years of feedback by users themselves and our in-app analytics), we are thrilled to be able to provide scientific evidence of Clear Fear’s value in order to reinforce this assertion.
Interested in finding out more? See below for a brief summary of this research and its findings, or you can see the official publication of the study here.
Study summary
We asked a group of young people to use Clear Fear, an app designed to help manage anxiety, for two months. By measuring what their mental health was like before and after, we were able to see if using the app helped make a positive difference to their wellbeing.
We need wide-reaching mental health support for young people…
It is widely-known that rates of children and young people’s mental health issues are consistently increasing in the United Kingdom, and anxiety is the most commonly experienced issue. Traditional support services such as counselling provided by the NHS, while immensely valuable, are unfortunately unable to meet this exceptional and increasing demand, leaving hundreds of thousands of young people a year in the UK without the support that they need and deserve.
Easily-accessible technologies that provide safe and effective mental health support to children and young people at scale are therefore essential to be able to meet this growing demand.
…This support exists…
The Clear Fear app, developed by UK-based teenage mental health charity stem4, provides evidence-based support for managing anxiety straight to young people’s own phones, providing instant and accessible support in their pockets—no referral or wait-list required.
…But we need to show it’s effective and safe
However, it is also crucial to ensure and demonstrate that any digital interventions, such as the Clear Fear app, that are used to support young people’s mental health are safe to use and work as they should.
That is why we undertook a small-scale study to examine how young people responded to the Clear Fear app and whether using it over a period of a few weeks could lead to any measurable improvements in their mental health, particularly their anxiety.
Clear Fear is an interactive mobile app developed for children and young people to be able to access the kind of support for anxiety that is often provided in therapy sessions (known as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), in order to make this valuable support much more accessible and available to many more people.
As an app, it also means that this support can be available ‘in the moment’ and at any time of day or night, whenever a young person needs it.
It was developed by a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with extensive experience in delivering this kind of support, along with young people themselves to help make it as youth-friendly as possible.
The Clear Fear app empowers young people to effect their own positive change, by:
- facing their fears;
- learning to reduce physical responses to anxiety, such as tense muscles and poor sleep;
- changing their thoughts and behaviours;
- releasing emotions;
- learning about anxiety; and
- monitoring how they are doing and what works best for them.
Accessible, safe and not-for-profit
The Clear Fear app is designed to be as accessible as possible for as many people as possible, including that it…
- Doesn’t need WiFi or data to use, making it as inexpensive to use as possible;
- Requires minimal storage space on a device;
- Follows industry accessibility best practices (e.g., contrast colours for those with sight issues and using a font that’s clear to read).
In terms of the safety of users, the Clear Fear app has put a number of measures in place to ensure that it is clinically safe to use, including that it…
- Has been developed by an experienced Consultant Clinical Psychologist and validated by young people themselves;
- Is regularly reviewed and updated, and consistently monitors user feedback;
- Signposts users to national resources and emergency numbers for additional support;
- Is compliant with regulatory standards (such as the NHS clinical safety standard DCB0129).
Additionally, the app is entirely not-for-profit: free to use for young people all across the UK, no in-app purchases, no advertisements and no selling of user data. No catch—just a tool designed to be as genuinely helpful as possible.
37 young people (aged between 16 and 25 years) who experienced anxiety completed this study, where they were introduced to the Clear Fear app, familiarised themselves with it for a week, and were then asked to use it as and when they needed for eight weeks.
Measures were taken, via questionnaires, of participants’ levels of anxiety, depression, and emotional and behavioural difficulties (such as conduct problems or friendship difficulties), before they started the study and after they had used the app for several weeks, so that we could compare any difference as a result of using the app.
We also explored how these young people used the app, what they did or didn’t like about it, and how effective they personally felt it was in helping their anxiety.
From this study, the Clear Fear app was found to be usable, acceptable, safe, and effective in helping young people to manage symptoms of anxiety (and also depression and emotional and behavioural difficulties). It was also well-received by the young people who took part.
The Clear Fear app was…
Effective
When comparing participants’ measures from the beginning versus the end of the study, we found that there were notably lower levels of anxiety in the group (as well as depression and emotional and behavioural difficulties) after using the Clear Fear app for eight weeks than there were at the start. This suggests that using the app did help to improve these young people’s mental health.
Easy to use
Most participants said they found the app “easy” or “very easy” to use.
Safe
The Clear Fear app can be relied on as a supportive tool for young people, with the vast majority of participants saying that the app helped to reduce their feelings of anxiety and helped reassure them when they were anxious.
Therefore, not only did the Clear Fear app produce a measurable benefit to young people’s mental health, but they themselves could notice the improvement too.
The app also has signposts to further help and a personalisable ‘Safety Net’ feature for users to note down things that help them and people they can contact when they need some extra support. In the study, over half of the participants said that the app helped them speak to someone about their anxiety.
Well-received by young people
The app was well received, offering reassurance, practical and immediate help to manage symptoms, and encouragement to seek help. Participants particularly liked the interactive and direct approach of the app’s activities, along with its information and guidance on how to manage feelings of anxiety and fear.
The most used parts of the app were…
What does all this mean for young people?
While this was a small-scale study, these initial results are a very promising indication of the potential of this app to be an effective, acceptable and safe resource for young people who are struggling with feelings of anxiety.
With anxiety disorders being the most commonly-experienced mental health conditions, with services stretched and long waiting lists, it is so important for safe and effective resources like Clear Fear to be available and easily-accessible for the young people who need them, and studies like this can contribute toward building public and professional trust in the Clear Fear app as a reliable and valuable evidence-based early intervention resource, helping to encourage organisations to provide the app at scale, such as within schools, or refer it to patients.
Partnership opportunities
To ensure as many children and young people can benefit from the power of the Clear Fear app in proactively managing anxiety, we are partnering with schools and other organisations across the UK to embed the Clear Fear app into existing wellbeing pathways. Interested in finding out more? Get in touch here.
Want to see the official write-up of this study? You can do so here.
