Kids Stress Relief is a technology based app to empower children aged 5-12 years old by providing tools that help them develop stress management skills. It is meant to be a prevention intervention and covers topics such as emotion recognition and expression, awareness of body signs of stress, strategies to effectively deal with anxiety and fears. Children are asked to make decisions in different stages of the app, engage with the content, and take responsibility of their choices. A gamification approach is deployed that encourages kids to practice in real life what they experienced virtually through a mechanism of reward to provide reinforcement.
Kids Stress Relief is designed by a multidisciplinary team that includes life coaches, psychologists, programmers, graphic designers, educators and analysts. For the development of the app, an iterative design approach is used by to ensure that the app is well accepted by children, it is user-friendly, effective and motivational.
The app was scientifically evaluated and it is being improved based on those findings and feedback received by children, parents and educators.
Nicolaidou,I., Tozzi, F., Kindynis, P., Panagiotou, M., & Antoniades, A. (accepted). Development and Usability of a Gamified Mobile App to Help Children Manage Stress: An Evaluation Study. Italian journal of Educational Technology
Tozzi, F., Nicolaidou, I., Galani, A., Antoniades, A. (2018). eHealth Interventions for Anxiety Management Targeting Young Children and Adolescents: Exploratory Review. Journal of Medical Internet Research (impact factor: 4.67), Journal of Pediatrics and Parenting 1(1):e5. URL: http://pediatrics.jmir.org/2018/1/e5 DOI: 10.2196/pediatrics.7248
Tozzi, F., Nicolaidou, I. Kindynis, Ph. Panagiotou, M., Vogazianos, P. Nicolaou, E., Kamilari, E., Christodoulou, A. & Antoniades, A. (2018). How do parents select educational apps for young children? Proceedings of the 13th International Conference of the Learning Sciences ICLS2018
Nicolaidou, I., Tozzi, F., Kindynis, P., Panagiotou, M., & Antoniades, A. (2017, October). An Interactive Storytelling Game for Mobile Devices for Children’s Stress Management. In European Conference on Games Based Learning (pp. 967-971). Academic Conferences International Limited.