"For an App Supposed to Make Its Users Feel Better, It Sure is a Joke" -- An Analysis of User Reviews of Mobile Mental Health Applications

TL;DR

This study analyzes user reviews of mental health apps to reveal issues like poor support, inconsistent moderation, and lack of transparency, highlighting the need for better standards and AI integration.

Contribution

It provides a large-scale analysis of user feedback on mental health apps, identifying key concerns and proposing guidelines for improvement and AI use.

Findings

Critiques on moderation and transparency

Social features and chatbots offer limited crisis support

Need for standardized development guidelines

Abstract

Mobile mental health applications are seen as a promising way to fulfill the growing need for mental health care. Although there are more than ten thousand mental health apps available on app marketplaces, such as Google Play and Apple App Store, many of them are not evidence-based, or have been minimally evaluated or regulated. The real-life experience and concerns of the app users are largely unknown. To address this knowledge gap, we analyzed 2159 user reviews from 117 Android apps and 2764 user reviews from 76 iOS apps. Our findings include the critiques around inconsistent moderation standards and lack of transparency. App-embedded social features and chatbots were criticized for providing little support during crises. We provide research and design implications for future mental health app developers, discuss the necessity of developing a comprehensive and centralized app development guideline, and the opportunities of incorporating existing AI technology in mental health chatbots.