TY - GEN
T1 - On the involvement of mental healthcare professionals in the co-design of highly-rated anxiety apps
AU - Drissi, Nidal
AU - Ouhbi, Sofia
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2021 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Mobile applications (apps) have the potential to assist people with their mental health issues. They have shown promising results in mitigating many mental health disorders and symptoms, including issues related to anxiety. Mental health apps are based on different approaches, one of which is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). However, these solutions still face many concerns and challenges, such as the lack of involvement and inputs of mental healthcare professionals (MHP) in their design and evaluation. This paper focuses on highly-rated CBT-based apps for anxiety and investigates the involvement of MHP in their co-design. Based on the obvious importance of inclusion of mental health professionals in the creation of mental care apps, the following hypothesis was formed: MHP are involved in the design and creation of CBT-based apps for anxiety. To investigate this hypothesis, 23 apps were selected and analysed. Results showed that contrarily to the initial hypothesis, about half of the selected CBT-based apps for anxiety did not involve MHP in their design. Results also showed that the number of installs of the selected apps might be impacted by the involvement of MHP. The average of installs of apps which involved MHP was significantly higher than the average of installs of apps that did not. This might indicate that users tend to trust apps that involve MHP more, which might have impacted their decision to install them. Findings of this study might be of interest to people suffering from anxiety, to help them find apps for anxiety that are based on MHP input, as well as to developers and researchers targeting similar apps.
AB - Mobile applications (apps) have the potential to assist people with their mental health issues. They have shown promising results in mitigating many mental health disorders and symptoms, including issues related to anxiety. Mental health apps are based on different approaches, one of which is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). However, these solutions still face many concerns and challenges, such as the lack of involvement and inputs of mental healthcare professionals (MHP) in their design and evaluation. This paper focuses on highly-rated CBT-based apps for anxiety and investigates the involvement of MHP in their co-design. Based on the obvious importance of inclusion of mental health professionals in the creation of mental care apps, the following hypothesis was formed: MHP are involved in the design and creation of CBT-based apps for anxiety. To investigate this hypothesis, 23 apps were selected and analysed. Results showed that contrarily to the initial hypothesis, about half of the selected CBT-based apps for anxiety did not involve MHP in their design. Results also showed that the number of installs of the selected apps might be impacted by the involvement of MHP. The average of installs of apps which involved MHP was significantly higher than the average of installs of apps that did not. This might indicate that users tend to trust apps that involve MHP more, which might have impacted their decision to install them. Findings of this study might be of interest to people suffering from anxiety, to help them find apps for anxiety that are based on MHP input, as well as to developers and researchers targeting similar apps.
KW - Anxiety
KW - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
KW - M-Health
KW - Mental Health
KW - Requirements Engineering
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85103837623&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85103837623
T3 - HEALTHINF 2021 - 14th International Conference on Health Informatics; Part of the 14th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, BIOSTEC 2021
SP - 281
EP - 287
BT - HEALTHINF 2021 - 14th International Conference on Health Informatics; Part of the 14th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, BIOSTEC 2021
A2 - Pesquita, Catia
A2 - Fred, Ana
A2 - Gamboa, Hugo
PB - SciTePress
T2 - 14th International Conference on Health Informatics, HEALTHINF 2021 - Part of the 14th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies, BIOSTEC 2021
Y2 - 11 February 2021 through 13 February 2021
ER -