Understanding Mental Health Apps for Youth: Focus Group Study With Latinx Youth

Abstract

Background An increasing number of mental health apps (MHapps) are being developed for youth. In addition, youth are high users of both technologies and MHapps. However, little is known about their perspectives on MHapps. MHapps might be particularly well suited to reach the youth underserved by traditional mental health resources, and incorporating their perspectives is especially critical to ensure such tools are useful to them. Objective The goal of this study was to develop and pilot a process for eliciting youth perspectives on MHapps in a structured and collaborative way. We also sought to generate learnings on the perspectives of Latinx youth on MHapps and their use in ways that might facilitate discovery, activation, or engagement in MHapps, especially in Latinx populations. Methods We created a series of focus groups consisting of 5 sessions. The groups introduced different categories of MHapps (cognitive behavioral therapy apps, mindfulness apps, and miscellaneous apps). Within each category, we selected 4 MHapps that participants chose to use for a week and provided feedback through both between-session and in-session activities. We recruited 5 youths ranging in age from 15 to 21 (mean 18, SD 2.2) years. All the participants identified as Hispanic or Latinx. After completing all 5 focus groups, the participants completed a brief questionnaire to gather their impressions of the apps they had used. Results Our focus group methodology collected detailed and diverse information about youth perspectives on MHapps. However, we did identify some aspects of our methods that were less successful at engaging the youth, such as our between-session activities. The Latinx youth in our study wanted apps that were accessible, relatable, youth centric, and simple and could be integrated with their offline lives. We also found that the mindfulness apps were viewed most favorably but that the miscellaneous and cognitive behavioral therapy apps were viewed as more impactful. Conclusions Eliciting youth feedback on MHapps is critical if these apps are going to serve a role in supporting their mental health and well-being. We refined a process for collecting feedback from the youth and identified factors that were important to a set of Latinx youth. Future work could be broader, that is, recruit larger samples of more diverse youth, or deeper, that is, collect more information from each youth around interests, needs, barriers, or facilitators or better understand the various impacts of MHapps by using qualitative and quantitative measures. Nevertheless, this study advances the formative understanding of how the youth, particularly Latinx youth, might be viewing these tools.