A smartphone photography-based positive psychology intervention for informal caregivers: A feasibility study

Smartphone photography may offer a scalable medium for delivering positive psychology interventions in everyday life. This feasibility study examined SnapAppy, a custom-built mobile application designed to support informal caregivers’ emotional well-being by encouraging daily photo-taking, annotation, reflection, mood logging, and periodic psychometric assessment. Twelve informal caregivers participated in a 30-day single-arm study. Feasibility outcomes included recruitment, retention, and engagement with daily photo-taking and mood reporting. Exploratory analyses examined pre–post changes in well-being and associations between photographic content and psychological outcomes. Results showed no consistent improvements across global well-being measures; however, positive affect (PANAS) increased from pre- to post-intervention. Exploratory analyses also suggested that certain image categories, including animals and food, were associated with more positive affect, while others showed mixed associations. Given the small sample and uncontrolled design, findings are preliminary and hypothesis-generating, but support further development of controlled and personalized photography-based digital well-being interventions.