Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
Date Submitted: Aug 7, 2024
Date Accepted: Mar 5, 2025
Digitized minds: Designing digital mental health tools with culturally diverse parents and young people
ABSTRACT
Background:
Approximately 39% of young people (16-24 years) experience mental ill-health, but only 23% seek professional help. Early intervention is essential for reducing the impacts of mental illness, but young people, particularly those from culturally diverse communities, report experiencing shame and stigma, reducing face-to-face service engagement. Digital mental health tools (DMH tools) promise to increase access, but there is a lack of literature exploring the suitability of DMH tools for culturally diverse populations.
Objective:
The project was conducted in partnership with a large-scale national digital mental health organization that promotes evidence-based early intervention, treatment and support of mental health in young people and their families. The organization wanted to develop a self-directed online platform for parents and young people that integrates psychological assessments and intervention pathways via an online ‘check in’ tool. Our project explored culturally diverse parent's and young people’s views of opportunities and barriers to engagement with an online digital mental health screening tool.
Methods:
We conducted a two-phase qualitative study aiming to identify potential issues faced by culturally diverse communities when engaging with DMH tools designed for the Australian public. We worked with culturally diverse parents (n=8) and young people (n=10) in a series of design-led workshops drawing on methods from speculative design and user experience to understand the opportunities and barriers that organizations might face when implementing population-level DMH tools with culturally diverse communities. NVivo was used to conduct thematic analyses of the audio-taped and transcribed workshops.
Results:
Five themes were constructed from the workshops: (1) Trust in the use and application of a DMH tool, (2) Data management and sharing, (3) Socio-cultural influences on mental health, (4) Generational differences in mental health and digital literacy, and (5) Stigma and cultural-based discrimination in mental health support.
Conclusions:
The emerging themes have important considerations for researchers wishing to develop more inclusive DMH tools in the future. The study found that healthy parent-child relationships will increase engagement in mental health support for young persons from diverse backgrounds. Barriers to engagement with DMH tools included cultural-based discrimination, the influence of cultural on mental health support, and how a diagnostic label may impact the likelihood of engaging in help-seeking. The study’s findings suggest a need for culturally safe psychoeducation for culturally diverse end users that fosters self-determination with tailored resources. They also highlight important key challenges when working with diverse populations. Clinical Trial: NA
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