To make our work easier, psychologists and social workers need to be aware of two agencies that vet apps.
Started in 2018, TherAppX is a Canadian organization that develops and evaluates mental health apps https://therappx.com/. As a professional you can go to their website and get a free account at AppGuide PRO.
Typically as consumers of apps we go to the App Store and use the ratings to determine if we will purchase the app. However the founder of TherAppX. de Chantal et al. (2022) found after studying 1200 apps that highly rated apps were sometimes not as effective as lower rated apps. Furthermore there are apps that are not based in theory and have excellent marketing. An example of this is Daylio (https://daylio.net/) which has a rating of 4.8 from millions of people and costs appr. $35.99 for the annual premium version.
The second agency located in the USA is called One Mind https://onemind.org/brain-health-video-interviews/one-leaders-mind-at-work-digital-mental-health-tools/ and is run by Dr. Stephen Schueller. The agency has developed the One Mind Cyber Guide and provides expert reviews on mental health apps and offers recommendations. This website has a number of useful videos.
Like Dr. de Chantal he noted that many apps are not evidence-based. He quoted an article cited in JAMA (see below). The researchers found that there was an increase in self harm when teaching dialectical behaviour therapy skills online. What is of interest in this study is how rigorous it was - it had a large sample of 18, 644 using a pragmatic clinical trial format - in other words the findings were based on sound evidence.
References
de Chantal, P. L., Chagnon, A., Cardinal, M., Faieta, J., & Guertin, A. (2022). Evidence of user-expert gaps in health app ratings and implications for practice. Frontiers in Digital Health, 4, 765993. https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2022.765993
Simon G.E., Shortreed S.M., Rossom R.C., et al. (2022) Effect of offering care management or online dialectical behavior therapy Skills training vs usual care on self-harm among adult outpatients with suicidal ideation: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA. 327(7):630–638. doi:10.1001/jama.2022.0423
If you have any questions please contact me at oliveyongecounselling@gmail.com