When stress is already high, even a helpful-looking app can feel like another thing to manage. This study makes room for that truth. It listened to autistic adults, including people who liked the tool and people who did not.
- A calm, clear tool may help someone notice their stress.
- The same tool can feel demanding when it is too rigid or poorly timed.
- You do not have to keep using an app that makes life harder.
Questions you can take with you
You do not need to become an expert. These questions can help you talk with a professional or support provider.
- Can I choose when reminders arrive — or turn them off?
- Do the tips fit my real life today?
- What information does the app keep, and who can see it?
Want the study details?Sample, method and evidence type
- People interviewed
- 15
- Age range
- 27–70
- Study setting
- Netherlands
Read on for what was studied, what was found and what remains uncertain.
The small moment this study notices
Sometimes an app is offered as a simple answer: track a feeling, follow a tip, feel better. But opening an app also asks something of a person. It asks for time, attention, energy and trust. For someone already carrying a lot, that matters.
This Dutch study listened to 15 autistic adults who had used a free stress-monitoring app and were not receiving mental health care. Eight described themselves as satisfied with it and seven as dissatisfied. The researchers did not ask whether the app could cure or fix anyone. They asked what it was like to live with it.
What felt supportive
Many participants liked the quiet, uncluttered look. Some found the questions and the visual overview useful for noticing stress that can be hard to name in the moment. A tool that is gentle, predictable and does not shame someone for struggling can feel very different from one that tries to push them.
Trust mattered too. Some people valued that autistic adults had helped shape the app. Others wanted clearer information about what the app was based on and what happened to their personal notes. These are not small details. They are part of whether a tool feels safe enough to use.
What made the tool harder
The same structure that helped one person could weigh on another. Fixed times for questionnaires sometimes collided with work, tiredness or daily life. Repeated logins were an irritation for some people. Tips could feel out of touch with the moment — especially when they did not fit the person’s energy, surroundings or actual options.
That is an important finding, even though it is not a clinical trial result. An app designed to reduce stress can itself create technostress when it feels demanding, inflexible or too superficial. Stopping or changing a tool that adds pressure is not a failure.
A kind way to use this research
This is not a recommendation for the app studied. It is a reminder that a digital tool should fit around a person’s life, not ask the person to fit around the tool. If an app is being considered, it can help to ask whether its reminders can be adjusted, whether its advice feels relevant, and what happens to the data.
An app cannot replace care when care is wanted or needed. It also cannot tell anyone what their stress ‘should’ look like. A useful tool leaves room for a person’s own knowledge, for pauses, and for saying: this is not helping me today.
Limitations to keep in view
- This was a small qualitative study of 15 people in one country, so it cannot predict every person’s experience.
- It describes one specific app and does not test whether that app reduces stress or improves mental health.
- Several authors were affiliated with the mental health provider that developed the app; this was declared in the article.
User experiences of the mobile stress autism mate (SAM) application: a qualitative study among autistic adults not receiving mental health care
van Asselt A, Roke Y, Hoeberichts K, Begeer S, Scheeren A
Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine · 2026
This article provides general information and does not replace individualized medical, psychological or educational advice.