EFFECT OF SMARTPHONE APPLICATION (YARA) ON THE ANXIETY OF PATIENTS WITH DEPRESSION

Currently, depression is known as the disease of the century, which is one of the most common mental disorders in the whole world and Iran. On the other hand, since many patients do not seek medical assistance and the cost of treatment is high, this disease is spreading. Therefore, the need for appropriate treatment methods, including smartphone applications to prevent and improve depression, is one of the necessities of every society. Thus, this research was conducted to determine how the smartphone application (Yara) affects anxiety in depressed patients.

This semi-experimental study with a pretest and posttest design and with a control group was conducted on 64 patients with depression referred to the psychiatry clinic of Razi Hospital, Urmia and the psychiatry clinic of Shahid Madani Hospital, Khoi in 2021-2022. Sixty-four patients were selected using the convenience method and randomly assigned to two control and intervention groups. The intervention was conducted using the smartphone application (Yara) for three months. Data were collected using the Spielberg anxiety questionnaire before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed in SPSS version 22 using descriptive and analytical statistics.

The results showed that the use of the smartphone application (Yara) has a positive and significant effect on the anxiety of depressed patients (P=0.001), so the use of the smartphone application (Yara) leads to reduction of the anxiety of depressed patients.

Using the Yara application as a kind of digital technology is considered a suitable solution to improve the anxiety of the patients suffering from depression. In this way, smartphone technology is an opportunity to transform mobile phones into devices that can provide affordable mental health services. In this regard, using the smartphone application (Yara) can help reduce anxiety in people prone to depression and suffering from it. Also, knowing the effects of this application can open the gate to using this technology in treating mental disorders.