Reinventing mental health care in youth through mobile approaches: Current status and future steps

Frontiers in Psychology

Psychology

Sundas Saboor¹  Laura Marciano² 

[1] Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States;Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States;Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, United States;

关键词: mental health;    youth;    mobile;    trace data;    EMAS;    chatbots;    positive psychology;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1126015

 received in 2022-12-16, accepted in 2023-02-17,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

In this perspective, we aim to bring together research on mobile assessments and interventions in the context of mental health care in youth. After the COVID-19 pandemic, one out of five young people is experiencing mental health problems worldwide. New ways to face this burden are now needed. Young people search for low-burden services in terms of costs and time, paired with high flexibility and easy accessibility. Mobile applications meet these principles by providing new ways to inform, monitor, educate, and enable self-help, thus reinventing mental health care in youth. In this perspective, we explore the existing literature reviews on mobile assessments and interventions in youth through data collected passively (e.g., digital phenotyping) and actively (e.g., using Ecological Momentary Assessments—EMAs). The richness of such approaches relies on assessing mental health dynamically by extending beyond the confines of traditional methods and diagnostic criteria, and the integration of sensor data from multiple channels, thus allowing the cross-validation of symptoms through multiple information. However, we also acknowledge the promises and pitfalls of such approaches, including the problem of interpreting small effects combined with different data sources and the real benefits in terms of outcome prediction when compared to gold-standard methods. We also explore a new promising and complementary approach, using chatbots and conversational agents, that encourages interaction while tracing health and providing interventions. Finally, we suggest that it is important to continue to move beyond the ill-being framework by giving more importance to intervention fostering well-being, e.g., using positive psychology.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Marciano and Saboor.