Parrish Emma M, Filip Tess F, Torous John, Nebeker Camille, Moore Raeanne C, Depp Colin A
San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego, CA, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego (UCSD), CA, USA.
Crisis. 2022 Jul;43(4):289-298. doi: 10.1027/0227-5910/a000785. Epub 2021 May 27.
Mental health (MH) apps are growing in popularity. While MH apps may be helpful, less is known about how crises such as suicidal ideation are addressed in apps. We examined the proportion of MH apps that contained language mentioning suicide or suicidal ideation and how apps communicated these policies and directed users to MH resources through app content, terms of services, and privacy policies. We chose apps using an Internet search of "top mental health apps," similar to how a user might find an app, and extracted information about how crisis language was presented in these apps. We found that crisis language was inconsistent among apps. Overall, 35% of apps provided crisis-specific resources in their app interface and 10.5% contained crisis language in terms of service or privacy policies. This study employed a nonsystematic approach to sampling apps, and therefore the findings may not broadly represent apps for MH. To address the inconsistency of crisis resources, crisis language should be included as part of app evaluation frameworks, and internationally accessible, vetted resources should be provided to app users.
心理健康（MH）应用程序越来越受欢迎。虽然MH应用程序可能会有所帮助，但对于应用程序如何处理自杀念头等危机却知之甚少。我们研究了包含提及自杀或自杀念头语言的MH应用程序的比例，以及应用程序如何通过应用程序内容、服务条款和隐私政策来传达这些政策并引导用户获取心理健康资源。我们通过在互联网上搜索“顶级心理健康应用程序”来选择应用程序，类似于用户查找应用程序的方式，并提取了这些应用程序中危机语言呈现方式的信息。我们发现，各应用程序之间危机语言的使用情况不一致。总体而言，35%的应用程序在其应用程序界面中提供了针对危机的资源，10.5%的应用程序在服务条款或隐私政策中包含了危机语言。本研究采用了非系统的方法对应用程序进行抽样，因此研究结果可能无法广泛代表心理健康应用程序。为了解决危机资源不一致的问题，危机语言应作为应用程序评估框架的一部分纳入其中，并且应向应用程序用户提供国际通用的、经过审核的资源。
