An app to help you manage stress and anxiety
What does the app do?
This app has a variety of tools to help improve your mental health and well being such as goal setting, meditation activities, health habit tracking, thought analysis, mood tracking and a community for peer support. The app sends you a daily notification asking how you’re feeling, allows you to monitor your mood throughout the day and suggests activities based on your current mood and overall goal. It has weekly features such as podcasts. The free version has limited functionality and paid upgrade to the premium version provides access to additional features. For a more detailed description of the app, see Google Play or iTunes and for a detailed review, see Reviews.
For the complete app description, go to Google Play (android) or the app website.
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CONS |
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✔ Uses many techniques from cognitive behavioural therapy with ample explanation and structure. Has input from psychologists.
✔ Multiple guided meditations for general mindfulness and for specific situations.
✔ Encourages self-monitoring of mood and health goals such as sleep and exercise.
✔ Reminders and feedback.
✔ Tools are fairly customisable, and it recommends activities based on your goals such as decreasing anxiety, live healthier, feel happier etc.
✔ Community section with a discussion board and chat groups but I couldn’t find evidence that these were monitored.
✔ Encourages recording of thoughts, feeling and behaviours.
✔ Has a learning section called “guided paths” which assigns an audio lesson and assigned activity each day. There are 7n days available with the free version, and another 28 with the paid version.
✔ Paid version has extensive extra tools such as more cognitive behavioural therapy tools, journaling and the extended guided paths.
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✘ Busy home screen - its not immediately intuitive or simple to use
✘ Has a lot of functionality but could feel overwhelming
✘ The free version is quite limited
✘ Community board doesn’t seem to be monitored
✘ No studies done on the app’s effectiveness
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Privacy and security
The app is password protected. It also has links to the terms of service and its privacy policy which gives information on the types of information collected and details on how the information is used. Read more about things you can do to improve your safety and security when using apps.
Review details
Date of review: April 2018
Platform reviewed: Android
Version: 6.0.2
Download size: 61.34 MB
Updated on: 26/03/2018
Clinical review
Free version:
Paid version:
Reviewer: Jeremy Steinberg, GP Registrar, RNZCGP
Date of review: April 2018
Comments: " This app is most useful for people with stress, depression and anxiety. Pacifica uses techniques from cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness to help improve anxiety and depression. The tools in the app are well structured, interactive and easy to use, however the free version is quite limited. There are no studies of the effectiveness of the app itself, but the tools it uses are evidence based. There is a community board and chat groups to find support, but these did not seem to be extensively monitored. It can also be used to track generic health goals such as exercise, medication and sleep in a limited way."
Safety concerns: " It doesn’t suggest calling someone if you are feeling awful or link to crisis support services."
New Zealand relevance: "No link to New Zealand crisis support services."
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