Mental Health Apps for Children and Adolescents: A Clinician-Friendly Review.

Mobile apps for mental health and wellness (MH apps) have the potential to support youth mental health, expanding access to the large proportion of youth with mental health concerns who do not access formal treatment. Survey data suggest that young people are highly interested in MH apps, with minoritized youth (eg, LGBTQ individuals) and youth with elevated depressive symptoms reporting especially high rates of downloading MH apps. In addition, systematic reviews and meta-analyses suggest that MH apps can be effective.

Development of a mobile mindfulness smartphone app for post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol use problems for veterans: Beta test results and study protocol for a pilot randomized controlled trial.

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are highly prevalent, and co-occurring among post-9/11 veterans. Mobile health (mHealth) applications, specifically those focused on mindfulness-based techniques, may be an effective avenue to intervene with veterans who cannot or will not seek care at traditional in-person settings. Thus, to address areas of improvement in mHealth for veterans, we developed Mind Guide and prepared it for testing in a pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) with veterans.

User Experience, Engagement, and Popularity in Mental Health Apps: Secondary Analysis of App Analytics and Expert App Reviews.

Background: User experience and engagement are critical elements of mental health apps' abilities to support users. However, work examining the relationships among user experience, engagement, and popularity has been limited. Understanding how user experience relates to engagement with and popularity of mental health apps can demonstrate the relationship between subjective and objective measures of app use.

A process for reviewing mental health apps: Using the One Mind PsyberGuide Credibility Rating System.

Objective: Given the increasing number of publicly available mental health apps, we need independent advice to guide adoption. This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities of current mental health app rating systems and describes the refinement process of one prominent system, the One Mind PsyberGuide Credibility Rating Scale (PGCRS).

Methods: PGCRS Version 1 was developed in 2013 and deployed for 7 years, during which time a number of limitations were identified.

Accessibility and Digital Mental Health: Considerations for More Accessible and Equitable Mental Health Apps.

Digital mental health is often touted as a solution to issues of access to mental health care. However, there has been little research done to understand the accessibility of digital mental health, especially for those with disabilities. In this piece, we define accessibility as it relates to mental health apps, describe the current state of accessibility in the digital world broadly and in mental health apps more specifically, outline why accessibility matters in mental health apps, and identify future steps to better incorporate accessibility into research and development of mental health apps.