PRACTICAL APPS TO PROVIDE MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
September 29, 2022
Samantha Jones
Did you know that 1 in 5 US adults are suffering from some sort of psychological illness? In 2020, 52.9 million people were affected by these illnesses. Accordingly, an app that aims to help these people would be a great idea. You can only imagine the number of people that will benefit from your app.
IDEAS FOR YOUR APP
Here is how you can help people cope with their mental health issues through an application:
An app can allow various people with similar issues to interact and discuss their coping strategies. It can be similar to any social networking site, except this site would only be for people facing similar mental health issues.
2. TALK TO A PROFESSIONAL:
Talking to friends when suffering from mental health issues isn’t always the right decision. Especially if the individual is experiencing suicidal thoughts, they need to talk to a professional. An app can connect therapists with people in real time. Through live chat or call, they should be able to resolve the issue.
3. EDUCATIONAL ARTICLES:
Post articles that educate people about mental health to enable them to understand their mental health condition and coping strategies.
4. DAILY REPORT:
The app can allow people to write a daily diary and keep track of their daily activities and emotions. This can help them understand the reason behind their feelings and thus help them cope with the stress-causing factors. Moreover, therapists also recommend writing daily; it makes a person feel calm and sorted.
5. TRACK ACTIVITIES:
People with mental illnesses often find it hard to focus on their daily goals and activities. An app can help them track everything and remind them to complete their daily goals. For example, the app can remind you to drink water, have meals, exercise, and so on. This would encourage people to remember to take care of their health.
TOP APPS THAT PROVIDE PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES
You can take inspiration from a range of existing mental health help apps. The following list consists top three apps that provide mental health help:
1. HEADSPACE:
This app allows users to meditate and, thus, feel more relaxed. It teaches its users mindfulness, enabling them to make themselves feel better mentally. This app has proven to help people deal with stress and mental health issues.
2. MOODFIT:
Moodfit aims to help its users by enabling them to understand their thoughts and habits that are causing stress. It enables users to track their mood and thought and encourages them to stay healthier by offering custom activity tracking services, medication tracking services, and custom reminders.
3. MINDSHIFT CBT
For users experiencing anxiety, this app is amazing! It helps users deal with anxiety through guided medication, journals, and activities to deal with the anxiety-causing factor.
KEY ATTRIBUTES APP FOR MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES?
Since this app would aim to provide services to a certain group of people, here is a list of things that you must keep in mind while communicating your requirements to your app development service:
1. USER-FRIENDLY INTERFACE:
An already over-whelmed individual would not appreciate the intrinsic interface of your app, no matter how good it is. A mentally challenged individual already finds it hard to manage everyday tasks; you can expect them to spend time navigating your app and trying to figure out how it functions.
Your app’s interface should:
- Be simple; all features should be visible or easily accessible
- Be interactive; Users should get a personalized experience. It would make them feel like you care about them and are genuinely interested in their well-being.
- Not consist of too much information on the landing page; a lot of information can overwhelm the user, so try to avoid it.
- Have a consistent and soothing color palette; generally, blue is considered a very soothing color, so maybe you can include blue in your color palette. Don’t use colors that often represent danger, such as red.
An individual going through psychological issues would not appreciate an app full of errors or an app that takes too much time to load. That would just make the users feel more frustrated and, thus, avoid using the app.
3. SECURE:
Since psychological health is such a taboo issue, people would not rely on your app if it isn’t secure. To ensure users’ trust and maintain confidentiality, the software must follow strict security protocols and set high data protection standards. App development services usually know the protocols to follow in such cases. Just make sure you communicate your concern to them.
To learn more about app design and its significance read ‘How the App Platforms must Respond With the UI/UX Performances?’
STEPS OF MENTAL HEALTH APP DEVELOPMENT
1. MARKET RESEARCH:
Conduct in-depth research on your targeted audience to understand their needs, affordability, and expectations. Through research, you can come up with ideas regarding what features to include in your application.
At this stage, you might also talk to a mental health professional to guide you better regarding the needs of psychologically challenged individuals.
2. LAY OUT YOUR REQUIREMENTS AND DECIDE ON A BUDGET:
Make a list of all the functions you would want your software to perform and accordingly decide your budget.
Instead of hiring a whole new team of designers, developers and marketers, you can just hire an app development service that can design, develop, test, market, and maintain the app for you. Make sure your developer understands your requirements and can fulfill those requirements.
CONCLUSION
Developing an app for mental health services is a great idea. There is a huge market for such applications because of the rising mental health issues worldwide. You must develop a practical idea and communicate it to one of the reliable app development services. They will develop amazing software for you.
