Gamifying Mental Health Treatment: A Mobile Interface Design for PTSD Intervention

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) treatment faces significant accessibility challenges, with only 30-40% of diagnosed individuals receiving care. This work presents a PTSD intervention delivered through a mobile application designed based on evidence-based treatment principles, particularly cognitive restructuring. Rather than implementing traditional resource-intensive PTSD treatments, the app employs brief, daily, game-like interactions to train users to develop more adaptive perspectives of themselves, others, and the world. The app's text-based interactions incorporate three key mechanisms: directional swiping gestures for thought categorization, paired statement tasks with immediate animated feedback, and emoji-based labeling to reduce cognitive load during. These interaction patterns were designed to maintain therapeutic fidelity while leveraging familiar mobile interface conventions. Analysis of multiple assessments on the validated PCL-5 measure showed 28.1% achieved clinically reliable improvement (≥18 point reduction). These findings suggest that engagement with brief mobile interactions, designed based on evidence based techniques, may effectively reduce PTSD symptoms through digital platforms.