Mental Health App Development ($2029) · Snippets

Mental Health App Development

Edited Dec 11, 2023

Anyone who decides to build a mental health app faces challenges with understanding the functionality and design components necessary to provide the most benefit to users. Even doctors who have been practicing for years find it hard to apply their knowledge and experience to the development of mental health apps.

An app’s design may alienate users, or in-app mechanisms may not sufficiently motivate them to take steps to overcome a mental health illness. Users might also abandon an app if they aren’t receiving the support they expect. The list of possible issues goes on and on.

In order to develop digital medicine solutions that meet many people’s needs, it’s important to follow an all-around UX approach. The purpose of this article is to acquaint you with this approach. But first, let’s look through the main arguments for creating a mental health app. Arguments for creating a mental health app

People all around the world suffer from depression, behavioral disorders, and mental illnesses. Many can’t afford traditional therapy, worry about the stigma of in-office treatment, or don’t have access to treatment for various reasons.

Statistics by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America show that 40 million adults in the US suffer from anxiety disorders. Global statistics from the same source show that nearly 75 percent of people with mental disorders go untreated in developing countries. This proves the need for accessible and effective treatment.

On the other hand, many mentally healthy people want to find an internal balance and live more fulfilling lives but aren't interested in traditional therapy.

Mental self-improvement apps

Mental health apps can be created for mentally healthy people wanting to monitor their mood swings, cultivate positive thinking, and break bad habits.

Meditation is often at the heart of these apps. For example, Calm uses meditation techniques as its core feature, since many people find them effective for handling stress and relaxing.

Apps like Self-help for Anxiety Management provide other self-monitoring and self-help techniques, such as physical and mental relaxation for those who don’t find meditation effective.

Some existing solutions for mentally healthy people also offer in-app psychologists for those who want to enlist the support of professionals to overcome mental illnesses.

In general, apps for mentally healthy individuals can be divided into general mental health apps, apps for addiction recovery, and stress-management apps.

General mental health apps. These apps enable users to enhance their self-awareness by controlling their mood, maintaining good habits and breaking bad ones, and cultivating positive thinking. For example, What’s Up? provides more than 100 questions to recognize your feelings and a Thinking Patterns page that helps you overcome negative thought patterns. The 7 Cups app has free trained “active listeners” available, who volunteer to care for people needing psychological help.

Apps for addiction recovery. The main purpose of these apps is to help people beat bad habits such as drinking, smoking, and taking drugs. Additionally, these apps allow people to track how much time has passed since they started fighting a bad habit. Twenty-Four Hours a Day, based on the bestselling book with that title, offers twelve steps to finally get rid of a bad habit.

Stress and anxiety apps specialize in helping people struggling with stress and anxiety. By providing 24-hour anxiety toolkits and diaries, they enable users to track and document thoughts that provoke restlessness. For instance, CBT Thought Record Diary, a mental health tracker app claims to help users make long-lasting changes to their thinking patterns and behavior.

Anyone who decides to build a  <a href="https://yalantis.com/blog/mental-health-app-development/">mental health app</a> faces challenges with understanding the functionality and design components necessary to provide the most benefit to users. Even doctors who have been practicing for years find it hard to apply their knowledge and experience to the development of mental health apps.