5 Mental Health Apps Worth Recommending to Your Patients
Originally Published by The Capterra Medical Software Blog
We’ve gone over the 10 Best Mental Health Apps for Medical Professionals, but wouldn’t it be great if patients could monitor their health themselves? Just like you’d recommend certain drugs or exercises, here are some apps you can recommend to help your patients maintain and even improve their mental wellness.
Given the popularity of the quantified self movement, there are apps for tracking every aspect of health.
The quantified self is so hot right now.
Why not a quantified head?
After all, the supply of doctors and nurses focusing on mental is dwindling while the need grows. While 200 full-time mental health doctors and 3,600 nurses left the profession, community mental health and crisis teams saw a 15% increase in requests for services. Ideally, this is a perfect opportunity for technology to help close the gap.
Like other wellness apps, mental health apps could help automate triaging patients based on immediacy and urgency of need. They could free up doctor time by offering patients advice and exercises.
Easier said than done
However, designing an app that’s actually helpful is difficult. A 2015 University of Liverpool study showed that most apps designed for mental health sufferers are clinically unproven and potentially ineffective. Some could even make things worse. As anyone who’s ever Googled their physical symptoms can attest, a headache becomes brain cancer as quickly as you can type “WebMD.” Imagine all the crippling mental illnesses you could diagnose yourself with.
Even mental health apps endorsed by the NHS lack “an underlying evidence base, a lack of scientific credibility and limited clinical effectiveness.”
Here are five mental health apps you can recommend to your patients to help them better understand, measure, and improve their mental wellness.
1. Personal Zen
Apple, 3 stars
Free
Personal Zen’s claim to fame is that it has been clinically shown to reduce anxiety in 25 minutes. Well, not the app precisely, but attention-bias modification training, which the app offers. A Clinical Psychological Science study showed that an emerging cognitive treatment called attention-bias modification training (ABMT)reduces anxiety and stress among people suffering from high anxiety.
ABMT trains patients to ignore a threatening stimulus and to focus instead on a non-threatening stimulus.
The app does this by having you quickly trace with your finger the path the happy face on your screen took from the air to the grass while ignoring the path the angry face took.
On the plus side, neuroscientists including Dr. Dennis and researchers from Hunter College and the City University of New York were part of the development team.
On the negative side, it’s a pretty repetitive game, so it might be tough to do it for the 25 minutes you need to see full results.
2. Buddhify
Apple, 4.5 stars; Android, 4 stars
$4.99 Apple
$2.99 Android
Buddhify is a mindfulness-training app that guides you through more than 40 5-to-20- minute meditations.
Choose which to do based on your mood (feeling stressed) or activity (traveling, going to bed). CNET says the guided meditations are “pretty easy to incorporate into your day.”
While it doesn’t appear that any doctors or neuroscientists contributed to the app, one of the writers, Alexander Irving, is a mindfulness teacher with a specialism in pain science and pain management.
It was the 2014 Scottish App of the Year, and shortlisted for Health & Fitness App of the Year in the Europe-wide Lovies awards.
3. Positive Activity Jackpot
Android, 3.3 stars
Free
Positive Activity Jackpot uses augmented reality with an Android phone’s GPS to find nearby activities and diversions for someone coping with depression. Originally developed for service members returning from combat with high risk for post-traumatic stress disorder, “pull the lever” and let the app’s jackpot function make the choice for you.
PAJ is based on a form of behavioral therapy called pleasant event scheduling, which encourages a daily schedule of enjoyable activities to improve moods and overcome despondent thoughts.
4. ReliefLink
Apple, 4 stars
Free
Developed as a suicide-prevention tool, ReliefLink is kind of like MyFitnessPal for mental wellness. Not only does it help track your moods, but offers voice-recorded mindfulness and relaxation exercises. Most importantly, it stores the contact information for your preferred mental health professional, along with a map of nearby therapists, support groups, and mental health treatment facilities.
5. Mind Games
Apple, 4.5 stars; Android, 4 stars
Free
Mind Games uses cognitive psychology to help you practice different mental skills. It also tracks your game score history and allows you to graph your progress over time as you get better at the games. The app does not connect you to mental health professional, and does not appear to have been developed with the guidance of a mental health professional.
Conclusion
None of these apps are perfect, but each offers users something that can help them know when they need to seek professional help, stay healthy in the meantime, and even improve over time. Also check out The 5 Best Free Mental Health Tools for Medical Professionals, and 33 Mental Health Experts on Twitter You Need to Follow.
And if you’re looking for mental health software, check out our directory.
Did I miss any good apps? Let me know in the comments!
