DARE app

• Audio tracks
• Diary
• Tracking
• App community

Get the app from

(external link)

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Read a clinical review of this app.

• collect medical information? Yes
• require a login? No
• have password protection? Yes
• have a privacy policy? Yes
• require internet access? Yes

✔ Good educational information about panic and anxiety provided in audio format which will be useful for those who prefer to learn in this way.

✔ Contains information about techniques from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy approaches to anxiety.

✔ Reassuring and encouraging audio tracks.

✔ Contains useful guided relaxation and breathing audios.

✘ Based on the book DARE, a method for coping with anxiety which borrows strategies from both acceptance and commitment therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy, but does not have an evidence base supporting it as a whole treatment.

✘ Although the DARE steps seem very useful and align well with acceptance and commitment therapy strategies, exercises to practise these steps are not taught by the app.

✘ Limited content in free version.

✘ Some audio tracks for use during anxiety attacks guide the listener through a series of steps but these appear to somewhat contradict the main methodology of the DARE steps (eg, use relaxation to calm body instead of “running towards” anxiety step; eg, tell self “I’m excited” rather than defuse the worry about symptoms ).

✘ Provides content to reassure users but this is not a recommended treatment for anxiety and, in some cases, can maintain an anxiety disorder.

✘ Use of audio tracks to manage panic attacks repeatedly may maintain anxiety by becoming a “safety behaviour” in themselves rather than helping people to develop their own coping strategies and feel truly safe in the face of anxiety.