Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Mar 5, 2025
Date Accepted: Nov 29, 2025
Evidence for Digital Mental Health Assessment Tools in the Post-Covid-19 Era: Protocol for a Systematic Review on Diagnostic Accuracy Across Age Groups
ABSTRACT
Background:
Digital assessments in health care are increasingly used to aid clinicians in diagnosing mental health conditions. Particularly since the quarantine and isolation guidelines of the COVID-19 pandemic moved much of health care online, there has been an accelerated adoption of digital tools for assessment. The diagnostic accuracy of digital mental health assessments for a range of psychiatric conditions has yet to be fully explored, especially for their use in populations of older adults and children.
Objective:
This systematic review aims to evaluate the current landscape of evidence for the diagnostic accuracy of digital self-report question- and answer-based assessments for use in all ages for various psychiatric conditions.
Methods:
The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) guided the development of this protocol. The protocol has been registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO). The searches were guided by the PICO framework (population, intervention, comparator, and outcome). A systematic search was conducted of the following databases of literature published since 2021: MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA), Web of Science Core Collection, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and PsychINFO. Searches of clinical trial databases and hand searching of reference lists will be completed. Two authors will independently screen titles and abstracts of identified articles and select studies according to eligibility criteria, resolving inconsistencies through discussion. Full texts will then be screened following the same process. The two authors will extract data using the Covidence data extraction tool. Two authors will use the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 (QUADAS-2) tool to assess risk of bias for each full text inclusion. A descriptive summary of the findings will be presented along with tables.
Results:
Scoping for this review began in December 2024. Searches of databases were completed in January 2025. Full identification of relevant gray literature is aimed to be completed by April 2025, and the final review is expected to be completed by June 2025.
Conclusions:
The current review aims to evaluate the landscape of the diagnostic accuracy of digital mental health assessments across different ages (including children and the elderly), particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic due to the exponential increase in development and use of such tools. This review will provide evidence for wider deployment of digital mental health assessment tools across a wide age range. There will also be discussion about future research for digital tools and avenues for policy around digital mental health assessments. Clinical Trial: International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) CRD420250654734; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD420250654734
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