Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Sep 8, 2022
Date Accepted: Jan 25, 2023
Compassionate Technology: A Systematic Scoping Review of Compassion as Foundation for Blended and Digital Mental Health Interventions
ABSTRACT
Background:
An essential value in mental health care is compassion: awareness of suffering, tolerating difficult feelings in the face of suffering, and acting or being motivated to alleviate suffering. Currently, technologies for mental health care are on the rise and could offer several advantages, such as more options for self-management by clients and more accessible and economically viable care. However, digital mental health interventions (DMHI’s) have not yet been implemented widely into daily practice. Developing and evaluating DMHI’s around important mental health care values, such as compassion, could be key for a better integration of technology in the mental health care context.
Objective:
The current systematic scoping review explored the literature for previous instances where technology for mental health care has been linked to compassion or empathy, to investigate how DMHI’s can support compassionate mental health care.
Methods:
Searches were conducted in the databases PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science, and screening by two reviewers resulted in 40 included articles. From these articles we extracted the following data: goals and target groups of the technologies, types of technologies, study designs, outcome measures, and the extent to which the technologies met a five-step proposed definition of compassion.
Results:
We found three main ways in which technology can contribute to compassion in mental health care; by showing compassion, by enhancing (self-)compassion in people, or by facilitating compassionate care between a client and caretakers. However, none of the included technologies met all five elements of compassion, nor were they evaluated on compassion.
Conclusions:
We make the case for the potential of compassionate technology, it’s challenges, and the need to evaluate technology for mental health care on compassion. Our findings could contribute to the development of fully compassionate technology, where all elements of compassion are embedded in its design, use, and evaluation.
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Copyright
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