Trend: Despite concerns, large US employers deploy apps, AI chatbots, other digital tools to boost workplace mental health

Employ­ers Are Offer­ing a New Work­er Ben­e­fit: Well­ness Chat­bots (The Wall Street Jour­nal): More work­ers feel­ing anx­ious, stressed or blue have a new place to go for men­­tal-health help: a dig­i­tal app. Chat­bots that hold ther­a­pist-like con­ver­sa­tions and well­ness apps that deliv­er depres­sion and oth­er diag­noses or iden­ti­fy peo­ple at risk of self-harm are snow­balling across…

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Clinicians and academics should engage users when reviewing mental health apps, study finds

Study: Pro­fes­sion­al, con­sumer opin­ions dif­fer on men­tal health app qual­i­ty (Mobi­Health News): Researchers found low agree­ment between pro­fes­sion­als’ and con­sumers’ reviews of men­tal health apps. The study, pub­lished in JMIR, assessed 11 men­tal health apps using web sur­veys admin­is­tered between Decem­ber 2020 and April 2021. The apps assessed includ­ed Breethe, Calm, Head­space, Insight Timer Meditation,…

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Update: Promote brain plasticity by taking your daily exercise pill — physical and cognitive

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing nine sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try devel­op­ments to help pro­mote life­long brain health. #1. A must-read, and must-prac­tice: Pro­mote brain plas­tic­i­ty and keep your mind at ease by tak­ing your dai­ly “exer­cise pill” #2. If cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion came in a pill it’d be worth a quadrillion, give or…

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Trend: Consumers increasingly taking care of their behavioral health via DIY tools like these

_______ 8 con­­sumer-friend­­ly dig­i­tal tools to sup­port behav­ioral health (mobi­health news): “From vir­tu­al ther­a­py to mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion aids, there’s lit­tle short­age of dig­i­tal tools catch­ing investors’ eyes and break­ing into the crowd­ed behav­ioral health mar­ket. Although a num­ber of these ser­vices are posi­tion­ing their busi­ness to focus on pay­ers and employ­ers, many oth­ers are…

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