Tips for Finding a Therapy App? There are apps for almost everything these days, but the ones designed especially for mental health treatment are finding the most users for reasons that are difficult to fathom.
The draw of cost, convenience, and mental health relief that virtual health platforms claim to provide shows that they are not going anywhere shortly, despite some people connecting it to the events of the last two years.
Aspects To Consider
It’s really hard to make a good and effective mental health app. It’s important to fully understand the parts of style and functioning so the user can get the most out of them.
Two groups must work together for a mobile mental health product to be successful: mental health experts and software solution makers.
It’s possible for the app’s design or processes to go wrong, which could turn off users or not push them enough to take the steps needed for healing. Once more, users might only use the app if they get the help they expect.
Over the last year, we saw that even the best online therapy sites need help with this. While Talkspace fought with privacy protection issues, BetterHelp had a major disagreement with their doctors.
Features To Look For
Not all apps are the same; picking one has become even harder since the mental health care business has grown so quickly. Even experienced doctors are finding it difficult to sort through the many choices available on the phone, with an estimated 20,000+ telehealth platforms and apps to choose from.
For added difficulty, it is necessary to ensure security, which makes it even harder to separate the real ones that should be downloaded from the ones that have bugs and shouldn’t be looked into.
Now that we know finding a good mental health therapy app is not always easy, let’s talk about some features that these apps should have now.
- Messaging: To help the user contact a therapist quickly, the app must offer voice, video, and text messaging. The freedom of the chat options will encourage the patient to be more honest about their problems.
- Availability: A mental health app should let you talk to a therapist anytime, day or night. What good is a tool you can’t use when you need it? There should be another tool in the app that lets the therapist know when a patient is in need, even if they are not online.
- Convenience: Convenience is the most important factor for an app’s success. The platform should be easy to use; it should have a simple design to encourage more users to contact a therapist regularly.
- Colors and images: For users, creating an app with color and image themes makes them feel calm. For the user to use the mental health app more often, this will push them to do so.
- Make the patient feel good: Even if the patient hasn’t used the app in a while, it should send them daily messages that make them feel good through updates or messaging. The patient will start to think straight after reading this.
- Progress tracker: The best mental health app should have a progress tracker that shows how much the patient improves daily. Both the therapist and the patient should be able to see this.
- Healthy activities: Sometimes, just talking to a therapist can get boring, so if an app has activities like dancing, meditating, or arts and crafts, it can take away bad feelings and replace them with good ones.
- Support group options: People who are having problems with their mental health can get together and talk about their problems by creating support groups. You can help others deal with their problems by openly discussing them with people who understand.
- Data encryption: A patient’s mental health information should always be kept secret so that it isn’t used in the wrong way. The app should follow HIPAA or GDPR rules so that the patient’s health information stays private and only the therapist and the patient can see it.
Arguments in Favor Of Online Therapy
A lot of people around the world have problems with their mental health, like sadness, anxiety, and behavioral disorders. Many people who need help can’t get it because they can’t afford it or are afraid of the social shame of face-to-face counseling. This means that nearly 75% of people with mental illnesses can’t get care.
The recent rise in the number of people downloading mental health apps shows that people want help with their mental health. People have thought these could be a good option for regular therapy because they are easy to get on smartphones and don’t take up much space.
Mobility issues, living in rural places, and people who don’t want to go to standard therapy may all be able to get help through technology.
Weaknesses
In the same way, these possible benefits come with their problems and risks, such as not having enough useful data. Every new tool needs to be tested by scientists. This still needs to be quite there in the case of online therapy. There is a lot of study behind traditional therapy, which is why it works.
The mental health apps depend on the user to figure out and treat their situation. This means you need to figure out what mental illness is affecting your health and then find a good app. This means you have to figure out what’s wrong with you.
A lot of people who have mental health problems have more than one disease that affects them. A health app would only be able to help with some of your problems, leaving other bothersome health issues ignored.
Again, app makers often don’t care about how safe their users feel. These sites have a lot of private information, but only some app developers can promise their users safety.
Then there’s the chance of selling too much. If an app makes more claims than it can keep, consumers may be impacted by being denied access to more effective treatments.
