Impact of supportive text messages on Anxiety

For male subscribers of Text4Hope, the mean scores of Perceived Stress Scale-10, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 scales and the Cumulative Mental Health score were significantly higher for a control male population compared to the intervention group by 11.4%, 28.8%, 25.8%, and 18.7%, respectively. Similarly, a statistically significantly lower prevalence was observed in the intervention group, compared to the control group for likely Major Depressive Disorder -MDD (58.15 vs. 37.4%) and likely Generalized Anxiety Disorder- GAD (50 vs. 30.8%), with a small effect size. The intervention group was a significant predictor for lower odds of both likely MDD and likely GAD while controlling for sociodemographic characteristics.

For young adult subscribers of Text4Hope, there was a significant reduction in the mean scores on the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 scale score (18.4%) from baseline to six weeks with a small effect size.

In a study which examined the effectiveness of Text4Hope program in alleviating psychological symptoms and improving wellbeing among subscribers in Alberta and Nova Scotia during the 2023 wildfires, there were significant reductions in the mean scores on the Generalized Anxiety Disorder -7 scale (−14.8%) from baseline to six weeks. In the naturalistic controlled study, the intervention group who had received the daily messages for six weeks had a significantly lower mean score on the GAD-7 (−29.4%) from baseline to six weeks compared to the control group who had subscribed to the program but had not yet received any messages.