ABSTRACT
The past one decade has witnessed a boom in the availability of Internet-based self-help apps in the field of mental health. Several apps have emerged that aim to provide information and strategies to empower individuals with self-help approaches to deal with issues and concerns related to mental health. A large number of these apps in developing countries are likely to be those which depend entirely on the users to go over the self-help program on their own (unguided internet-based self-help). Only a few apps add a component of periodic professional contact/technical support through phone/email or other means to supplement the self-help strategies suggested in the app that the user is expected to utilize. This scenario poses several challenges in use of unguided self-help apps for mental health. This paper enumerates some of these challenges for potential users of the apps from the perspective of clinicians. These range from difficulties in choosing the right app, limited scope for contextualization, and motivation management to awareness about when to step up to a higher intensity intervention. Despite these challenges, unguided self-help apps can serve important purposes, and hence we propose a few recommendations to address such challenges.
ABSTRACT
The study was designed to explore psychological recovery and its correlates in adults receiving outpatient mental health services for psychiatric disorders. It specifically aimed at examining the association of psychological recovery with symptomatic and functional recovery and with selected illness and treatment variables. The relationship of psychological recovery with perceived social support was also the focus of inquiry. The study utilized a cross sectional survey design with a sample of 90 participants diagnosed with severe and common mental illness who had been seeking outpatient psychiatric follow up services. The data was collected with the help of both clinician rated and self-rated measures. The study findings suggested that symptomatic, functional and psychological recovery are significantly correlated but not completely overlapping constructs. Nearly 40% of the sampled participants were at the lower stages of psychological recovery, despite the fact that a majority of them were rated by clinicians as having mild or lower severity of symptoms. With respect to socio-demographic variables, a significant association was found between higher levels of education and psychological recovery. The participants with common mental illness were significantly lower on self-reported improvement and higher on moratorium subscale of psychological recovery (as compared to those with severe mental illness), indicating their struggle in dealing with a sense of loss and despair. Findings also suggested that higher levels of overall perceived social support is likely to facilitate psychological recovery.
