Prototyping a Mental Health Smartphone Application

Abstract

Mental illness among young people has reached epidemic proportions. One solution proposed for addressing this issue is increasing their mental health literacy, which research has found to be negatively correlated with the chance of developing a mental illness. This study suggests that a smartphone app may be the best medium for raising the mental health literacy of young people. Most young people own smartphones, which have the technology to utilize both traditional and unique techniques for delivering information on mental illness. To explore the potential of a mental health literacy app, a literature review on existing mental health apps was conducted. In addition, 15 young adults equally divided into 3 focus groups were asked to discuss their knowledge of and opinions on mental health, technology design, mental health apps, and what they would theoretically like to see in a mental health literacy app. The results found a varied level of knowledge about mental health among the participants. In addition, participants offered several guiding principles for the development of mental health apps, such as suggesting they focus on providing users information, not a diagnosis. Further the results offer guidelines on the design of a mental health literacy app, the likely support it would receive from young people, and its necessity for this demographic.