JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Unguided digital mental health interventions (UDMHIs) have the potential to provide low cost and effective mental health care at scale. Controlled trials have demonstrated the efficacy of UDMHIs for treating mental health symptoms and conditions. However, few prior publications have described the demographics of real-world users of UDMHIs that are freely available to the public. The Department of Veterans Affairs has created and hosts several UDMHIs on its Veteran Training Portal website. These UDMHIs are web-based, free to use, and publicly available. These UDMHIs include Path to Better Sleep, Anger and Irritability Management Skills, and Moving Forward, which focus on insomnia, problematic anger, and depression symptoms, respectively.

Objective:

To examine the demographics of users of these three UDMHIs during the year 2021. Also, to compare the age and gender distribution of the users of those three UDMHIs with one another and with the age and gender distribution of the total United States (US) Veteran population.

Methods:

Google Analytics was used to collect user data for each of the three UDMHIs. The age and gender distribution of each UDMHI was compared the other UDMHIs,’ as well as with that of the overall U.S. Veteran population, using χ2 tests. Information on the total number of users, the country they were in, and the devices they used to access the UDMHIs was also collected and reported.

Results:

During 2021, the three UDMHIs together recorded 29,306 unique users. Estimated age range and gender was available for 7,068 (24%) of those users. Each UDMHI’s age and gender distribution significantly differed from the other UDMHIs’ and from that of the overall U.S. Veteran population (all χ2 test P < .001). Women and younger age groups were over-represented among UDMHI users, as compared with the overall U.S. Veteran population. The majority of users accessed the UDMHIs with desktop or laptop devices (62%), though a substantial proportion used mobile devices (34%). The majority of users (93%) were located in the U.S., with users from Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia accounting for another 3% of total users.

Conclusions:

Our use of Google Analytics data provided useful information about the users of three free and publicly available UDMHIs provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs. While our findings should be considered in the light of the limitations of autonomously collected web analytics data, they still offer useful information for healthcare policy makers, administrators, and UDMHI developers.