RT Journal Article
A1 Torous, John
A1 Firth, Joseph
A1 Goldberg, Simon B.
T1 Digital Mental Health’s Unstable Dichotomy—Wellness and Health
JF JAMA Psychiatry
JO JAMA Psychiatry
YR 2024
DO 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.0532
SN 2168-622X
AB For at least the last decade, digital mental health technologies (DMHTs) such as smartphone apps, virtual reality, and wearables have been expanding in scope and potential. Today, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has joined the list of guided (coached) and unguided (self-help) digital tools that aim to deliver mental health interventions. A groundswell of interest and investment in these technologies underscores their potential to increase access to care and deliver scalable interventions. And yet the clinical benefits of these DMHTs remain largely unrealized. How can research, investment, and innovation better align to improve mental health outcomes for patients? The first step is to move past the appealing narrative of a dichotomy between wellness and health devices. Today, wellness DMHTs such as mindfulness apps are often viewed as having no risks and being exempt from requiring substantial data to prove efficacy. Medical DMHTs, such as prescription therapeutics, present the opposite scenario, often claiming substantial potential risk and presenting (often weak) efficacy data. As the field faces the next challenge of engagement, transparency in safety and efficacy rather than categorical wellness or medical labels will be critical to ensure future innovations are better able to engender trust, deliver benefits, and catalyze engagement.
RD 5/20/2024
UL https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.0532