More than 70% of mental health apps do not mention any crisis hotline, and only one in seven mentions the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, a study in Psychiatric Services has found. In addition, a sizable minority of apps that mention alternative crisis hotlines link to ones that don’t work.
Bridget Dwyer, B.S., of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and colleagues searched the mental health app marketplace and found 302 apps that were available to download for less than $10. They assigned a subset of apps to each of eight app raters—undergraduate and graduate students and research assistants—who had at least six months of experience in rating apps that appear in the M-Health Index and Navigation Database. The raters assessed the presence of 988 within each app, and if 988 was mentioned, whether a user could call the lifeline directly through the app. They also searched for alternative crisis resources within each app.
Raters found that 217 of the apps didn’t mention or provide contact information for any hotline. In addition, only 44 of the 302 apps rated mentioned 988, which is now recognized as the national standard suicide hotline. Of 134 apps that had been updated within the past year, only 25 (19%) mentioned 988. Of the apps that mentioned 988, slightly more than half embedded a link for a direct connection to the hotline.
Seventy-one apps mentioned alternative crisis hotlines, such as the Crisis Text Line as well as hotlines associated with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Trevor Project, and the National Sexual Assault Hotline. However, 14 apps (with more than 3.5 million downloads combined) mentioned hotlines that had been disconnected or weren’t available in a specific region.
“To limit the risk or harm associated with alternative hotlines, app developers, regulators, and policymakers should consider including 988 in every mental health app,” Dwyer and colleagues wrote. “Given the widespread use and upkeep of 988, the hotline has a low risk of nonfunctionality and serves as the most reliable current crisis resource.”
For related information, see the Psychiatric News article “Majority of Callers say 988 Saved Their Lives.” For information on assessing mental health apps, see APA’s App Evaluation Model.
(Image: Getty Images/iStock/fizkes)
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