App-Based Delivery of Clinical Emotional Freedom Techniques: Cross-Sectional Study of App User Self-Ratings

Outcome study👥 270461 participantsPreliminary✓ Source-checked📍 United States

In plain English. This study looked at real-world usage data from a quarter-million people using a tapping app on their phones, covering over 380,000 completed guided sessions aimed at anxiety and stress. On average, people rated their emotional distress notably lower right after a session than right before it. Because there's no comparison group and people are simply rating their own feelings in the moment, this can't prove tapping caused the change on its own — but the sheer scale gives a real-world signal that lines up with results from smaller controlled studies of the same technique.

What they found

270461

people took part

Data from 270,461 app users completing 380,034 tapping meditation sessions for anxiety and stress (October 2018-October 2019) showed statistically significant reductions in self-rated emotional intensity from presession to postsession across sessions.

How the study worked

Who took partusers of a mobile app (The Tapping Solution App) who completed guided EFT tapping meditations (n=270461)

What they didParticipants received tapping and were measured before and after, without a separate comparison group.

Measured withpre-session and post-session self-rated emotional intensity

💡 Where this could help

If findings like these hold up in larger trials, the promise is simple: a low-cost, self-administered tool that could reach people who can't easily access traditional care — at home, between appointments, or where there aren't enough clinicians to go around.

🔬 What to study next

The natural next step: a head-to-head trial against an established treatment like CBT, and a randomized controlled design.

The full record

Design	Outcome study
Participants	270461 people
Population	users of a mobile app (The Tapping Solution App) who completed guided EFT tapping meditations
Outcome measures	pre-session and post-session self-rated emotional intensity
Journal	JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Year	2020
Country	United States
Language	English
Method	EFT / tapping
Publication type	Study / trial
Verification	✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Church, D., Stapleton, P., & Sabot, D. (2020). App-Based Delivery of Clinical Emotional Freedom Techniques: Cross-Sectional Study of App User Self-Ratings. JMIR mHealth and uHealth. https://doi.org/10.2196/18545

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping.