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Research Into Digital Health Intervention for Mental Health: 25-Year Retrospective on the Ethical and Legal Challenges.
Hall, Charlotte L; Gómez Bergin, Aislinn D; Rennick-Egglestone, Stefan.
Affiliation
  • Hall CL; Institute of Mental Health, Mental Health and Clinical Neurosciences, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
  • Gómez Bergin AD; National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre, Institute of Mental Health, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
  • Rennick-Egglestone S; National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) MindTech HealthTech Research Centre, Institute of Mental Health, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
J Med Internet Res ; 26: e58939, 2024 Sep 09.
Article in En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-39250796
ABSTRACT
Digital mental health interventions are routinely integrated into mental health services internationally and can contribute to reducing the global mental health treatment gap identified by the World Health Organization. Research teams designing and delivering evaluations frequently invest substantial effort in deliberating on ethical and legal challenges around digital mental health interventions. In this article, we reflect on our own research experience with digital mental health intervention design and evaluation to identify 8 of the most critical challenges that we or others have faced, and that have ethical or legal consequences. These include (1) harm caused by online recruitment work; (2) monitoring of intervention safety; (3) exclusion of specific demographic or clinical groups; (4) inadequate robustness of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness findings; (5) adequately conceptualizing and supporting engagement and adherence; (6) structural barriers to implementation; (7) data protection and intellectual property; and (8) regulatory ambiguity relating to digital mental health interventions that are medical devices. As we describe these challenges, we have highlighted serious consequences that can or have occurred, such as substantial delays to studies if regulations around Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) are not fully understood, or if regulations change substantially during the study lifecycle. Collectively, the challenges we have identified highlight a substantial body of required knowledge and expertise, either within the team or through access to external experts. Ensuring access to knowledge requires careful planning and adequate financial resources (for example, paying public contributors to engage in debate on critical ethical issues or paying for legal opinions on regulatory issues). Access to such resources can be planned for on a per-study basis and enabled through funding proposals. However, organizations regularly engaged in the development and evaluation of digital mental health interventions should consider creating or supporting structures such as advisory groups that can retain necessary competencies, such as in medical device regulation.
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Full text: 1 Collection: 01-internacional Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Mental Health Limits: Humans Language: En Journal: J Med Internet Res Journal subject: INFORMATICA MEDICA Year: 2024 Document type: Article Affiliation country: United kingdom Country of publication: Canada

Full text: 1 Collection: 01-internacional Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Mental Health Limits: Humans Language: En Journal: J Med Internet Res Journal subject: INFORMATICA MEDICA Year: 2024 Document type: Article Affiliation country: United kingdom Country of publication: Canada