Jacob Andrews |
This is
great news for many who have suffered with inadequate support for mental health
conditions, for instance those who have waited weeks, months or years to get access to talking therapies.
It is
welcome news too that there is renewed interest in online support. Modern
technology offers us many possibilities in terms of educating ourselves on
mental health and empowering us to monitor our own wellbeing. Getting it right
can be difficult, however. In 2013, the NHS started an online library of mental
health apps, which was later shut down after it was found some of the appswere not secure.
Mrs. May
will announce the introduction of online symptom checks. It will be interesting
to see which, if any, of the established tests for mental health conditions are
used to produce the new tests. One-time tests for mental health conditions are
known to provide biased results - they require test-takers to reflect on their
wellbeing over a period of two weeks or more, though memories of pastfeelings are influenced by present experience.
In CATCH at
the University of Sheffield, we are exploring how technology can be used ona daily basis to detect mental health problems early, and whether
this can be applied for older adults. Mrs. May’s new interest in mental health
shows there is appetite for such innovation, and we will be watching how
matters progress with interest.
Written by Jacob Andrews, PhD student
in CATCH, University of Sheffield
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