The effect of mental health apps in reducing mental health stigma

• Autor(a) principal: Magalhães, Inês Telles de Abreu
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/31123
• topic: Mental health; Mental health app; Willingness to use; Estigma; Saúde mental; Aplicações de saúde mental; Propensão a usar; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

The arising of stigma associated with mental disorders constitutes a threat to society these days, as patients struggle daily to overcome their condition and sometimes avoid seeking for help, thus perpetuating their suffering. Moreover, society is bearing the costs of these people not getting properly treated, which comprises not only social costs, but also economic burdens. This research attempts to address whether a mental health app could reduce the mental stigma and provide a wide and amplified solution to mentally ill people. To do so, a survey was conducted in which respondents were given several questions and scenarios where they report the existence of stigma and how they react to the emergence of a mental health app, specially how they perceive their effects and how much are they willing to use and pay for an app. The results obtained suggest that stigma is indeed present in our society and that people seem receptive to this alternative method. Finally, effectiveness and whether the app is scientifically approved or not emerge as main predictors of the willingness to use a mental app while stigma seems to have no impact on it. Therefore, mental health apps could thus be a promising toot to mitigate the mental health stigma.