AcademicMind - The mindfulness app for academics

Abstract Support better mental health is a long-term investment. Stressful life events and chronic adversity have a substantial impact on brain functions and may result in mental health problems. Stress during academic life was already established as a problem, and university students have a high-stress rate. Create and improve strategies to lower those levels can increase student wellbeing. Smartphones connect individuals across the world, and its software applications may have the ability to facilitate behavior change. Mindfulness-based interventions bring positive results for physical and mental health and are recommended to reduce stress. We offered a Mindfulness-based program for stress reduction for eight weeks on a progressive web application (app) for higher education students. The main objective of the project is to increase wellbeing by reducing stress levels in university students, providing them with tools and knowledge through a digital intervention program. Individuals completed the Warwick - Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale before the 1st, in the 5th week, and the 8th week of intervention. The pilot study counted with 15 participants from 4 countries, from undergrad to postdoc. Preliminary results showed that participants are mostly female (69%) from a master (52%) in health sciences (45%) and located in Brazil (50%). The access was usually via mobile (67%), and the first month had six times more visits and 1.3 times more meditations listened than the second. Participants improved their test score considering before (M = 43.20, 5.26) and after (M = 49.80, SE = 6.90), t(4)= -3.404, p = 0.027, demonstrating an increase of wellbeing after the program. Our lessons were: To maintain adhesion rate to the program constant. Provide access to professional help if needed. Turn the progressive web app into a native IOS and Android app. Integrate the smartphone application into university health programs with the possibility of referrals to mental health professionals. Key messages An intervention program as a progressive web app designed for academic students to improve wellbeing can offer good cost-benefit, ample reach, and early detection of cases that need specialized help. Provide a readily available and understandable program that permits the improvement of stress levels and wellbeing may be a possibility to decrease academic abandon and improve academic achievements.