Suicide rate is on rise in China, is mental health APP the solution?

Today, depression has gradually become one of the most destructive weapons all over world.

16% of global population are suffering from severe depression, and majority of them are located in China. Research shows more than 300,000 people committed suicide annually in this fast-developing country, and many of them are women and children residing in rural areas.

If this number is not shocking enough, China has a 2 times higher suicide rate compared to western countries. 60 to 70 percent of the population who committed suicide were depressed patients. While China have more than 40 million people diagnosed with mental illness, only 10 percent choose to receive continued therapies at hospitals.

Over the past years, however, situation has shifted dramatically. With the advance of internet technologies and growing awareness on the severity of depression, mental health apps in China have received unprecedented popularity.

Rise of Mental Health APPs globally

Today, companies running mental health APPs are still heavily concentrated in the United States. While their services are diverse and have covered all types of patients, they still remain the “assistants” of the doctors and hardly ever exceeded any role other than providing foundational knowledge.

In June, the world leading Apple Search Ads Specialist AppBi shows that search on key words like “depression”, “mental health”, and “mental health tracker” are rising rapidly in US IOS store following designer Kate Spade and CNN host Anthony Bourdain’s tragic suicide. After the news, users have shown increasing concern over mental health.



Meanwhile, an increasing number of therapeutic APPs are listed among TOP 20 this year in health category. Among them, highest ranked “Mindfulness” was an APP applying meditation to heal patients with anxiety. It also provides exercises to help users release their stress.

Among all, three APPs stood out in terms of ranking and popularity on APP stores.

TalkSpace

Traditional therapy can be very costly, but this APP allows people to get therapies online with real doctors under 50 dollars.

MoodTools

This APP provides a series of videos and online exercises to help patients of depression to recover.


Rise Up and Recover

This APP focuses on psychological-led-eating-disorder. Patients will be given a health diet plan. By following that, users are expected to restore their appetite.

In China, APPs like JianXinLi, NuanXinLi, and YouXinRen are also gaining popularities by creating a new way for patients to interact with therapists. While YouXinRen is a UGC (user generated community) gathering content from leading psychological professionals, NuanXinLi and JianXinli focuses on one-and-one online communication between doctors and patients.

Are they trustworthy?

While the downloads and advertisements are booming, the new therapeutic model provided by online mental health APPs are questioned by many doctors and research institutes who believe those treatments may not be as effective compared to traditional methods.

According to latest research, only 4% showed effective results among 700 tested mental health APPs. 58 was not at all helpful. Majority of the APPs only reached intermediate level of helpfulness.

Many doctors worried that instead of helping out the patients, the APPs could do more harm than good. Besides treatments, issues pertaining to data leak are also something to be concerned about.