Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Jan 15, 2024
Date Accepted: Jul 18, 2024
Mental health monitoring for young people via mood apps: Product Evaluation Protocol
ABSTRACT
Background:
Researchers have used mobile phones to assist in monitoring, analysing, and managing moods to acquire insight into mood patterns. There is a lack of evidence in their use as clinical tools and interventions, which necessitates a comprehensive review and quality assessment to understand barriers and facilitators for app implementation as an impactful clinical intervention.
Objective:
This review aims to (1) provide an overview of the recent evidence on mobile mood monitoring applications that are intended for facilitating self-management and support of mental health in children, adolescents, and young people; (2) investigate the quality of publicly available apps.
Methods:
Three phases of 1) literature review, 2) product search and 3) evaluation following PRISMA-ScR guidelines (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) are proposed. Phase 1 will conduct a literature review of six databases (EMBASE, CINAHL, PubMed, ACM digital library, Scopus, Springer LNCS) to identify studies and reviews on mobile applications that monitor mood, which were published within the last three years. The selection of mood apps will then be conducted in phase 2 by searching two app marketplaces (App Store and Google Play) using the keywords “mental health”, “mood”, “depression”, “bipolar disorder”, “mania”, “hypomania”, “mental coach” and “mood journal”. Phase 3 will be performed by evaluating the quality of eligible mood apps using MIND derived from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) app evaluation model. Two independent reviewers will conduct a comparative analysis to gather findings.
Results:
Literature search and screening began soon after submission of the protocol and is expected to be completed by August2024. The app evaluation will be completed by September 2024.
Conclusions:
Combined, the scoping literature review and app evaluation will provide an in-depth overview of the most recent scientific evidence related to mood apps and the quality of apps actually available for use.
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Copyright
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