JMIR Mental Health

AVATAR therapy is a novel psychological therapy that aims to reduce distress associated with hearing voices. The approach involves a series of therapist-facilitated dialogues between a voice-hearer and a digital embodiment of their main distressing voice (the avatar), which aim to increase coping and self-empowerment.

Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) offer scalable and cost-effective support for mental health but are predominantly developed in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) contexts, raising questions about their global applicability. Dropout, attrition, and adherence rates critically influence DMHI effectiveness yet remain poorly characterized in culturally adapted formats.

Poor management of mental health conditions leads to reduced adherence to treatment, prolonged illness, unnecessary rehospitalisation and significant financial burden to the health care system. Recognizing this, ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and remote measurement-based care (RMBC) interventions have emerged as promising strategies to address gaps in current care systems. They provide convenient means to continuously monitor patient-reported outcomes, thereby informing clinical decision-making and potentially improving outcomes such as psychopathology, relapse, and quality of life.

Depression and anxiety are prevalent but commonly missed and misdiagnosed, an important concern because many patients do not experience spontaneous recovery and duration of untreated illness is associated with worse outcomes.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is highly prevalent in conflict-affected regions like eastern Democratic Republic of Congo; yet, cultural stigma and lack of psychoeducation limit public understanding and help-seeking behaviors.

University students face high levels of stress with limited support for coping and well-being. Campus mental health services are increasingly using digital resources to support students’ stress-management and coping capacity. However, the effectiveness of providing this support through web-based, self-directed means remains unclear.

This study aims to detect self-harm or suicide (SH-S) ideation language used by youth (aged 13-21 y) in their private Instagram (Meta) conversations. While automated mental health tools have shown promise, there remains a gap in understanding how nuanced youth language around SH-S can be effectively identified.

Depressive disorder affects over 300 million people globally, with only 30-40% of patients achieving remission with initial antidepressant monotherapy. This low response rate highlights the critical need for digital mental health tools that can identify treatment response early in the clinical pathway.

The global demand for mental health services has significantly increased over the past decade, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital resources, particularly smartphone apps, offer a flexible and scalable means of addressing the research-to-practice gap in mental health care. Clinicians play a crucial role in integrating these apps into mental health care, although practitioner-guided digital interventions have traditionally been considered more effective than stand-alone apps.

Ambulatory assessment and mood monitoring are different methods that can use novel technology to deliver a more efficient, flexible and usable method of clinical outcome assessment compared to established measures of behavior and mood. Concerns have been raised around attrition in and adherence to these new protocols, particularly over the medium to long term in people with mood disorders.

The Safety Planning Intervention (SPI) is a suicide prevention intervention that results in a written plan to help patients reduce suicide risk. High-quality safety plans – that is, those that are most complete, personalized, and specific – are more effective in reducing suicide risk. Measuring SPI quality is labor intensive, which means that clinicians rarely get specific, actionable feedback on their use of the SPI.

Household chaos is an emerging risk factor for childhood obesity development, especially in families with lower socioeconomic status (SES). It is unclear if changes in household chaos, especially in pregnancy, may mediate the effectiveness of weight-related behavioral interventions.