The DOI matches its Crossref record; 57 of the 57 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Digital Mental Health for Young People: A Scoping Review of Ethical Promises and Challenges
Open accessAbstract
Mental health disorders are complex disorders of the nervous system characterized by a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Mental illness is of particular concern for younger people. The WHO estimates that around 20% of the world's children and adolescents have a mental health condition, a rate that is almost double compared to the general population. One approach toward mitigating the medical and socio-economic effects of mental health disorders is leveraging the power of digital health technology to deploy assistive, preventative, and therapeutic solutions for people in need. We define “digital mental health” as any application of digital health technology for mental health assessment, support, prevention, and treatment. However, there is only limited evidence that digital mental health tools can be successfully implemented in clinical settings. Authors have pointed to a lack of technical and medical standards for digital mental health apps, personalized neurotechnology, and assistive cognitive technology as a possible cause of suboptimal adoption and implementation in the clinical setting. Further, ethical concerns have been raised related to insufficient effectiveness, lack of adequate clinical validation, and user-centered design as well as data privacy vulnerabilities of current digital mental health products. The aim of this paper is to report on a scoping review we conducted to capture and synthesize the growing literature on the promises and ethical challenges of digital mental health for young people aged 0–25. This review seeks to survey the scope and focus of the relevant literature, identify major benefits and opportunities of ethical significance (e.g., reducing suffering and improving well-being), and provide a comprehensive mapping of the emerging ethical challenges. Our findings provide a comprehensive synthesis of the current literature and offer a detailed informative basis for any stakeholder involved in the development, deployment, and management of ethically-aligned digital mental health solutions for young people.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Figures
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Patients' mistrust in data sharing due to privacy concerns and confidentiality breaches may reduce their acceptability of digital health technologies.”
From Digital health technologies and major depressive disorder (2023) · cites this paper as [146]
In the citing paper
“Digital health technologies are not equally available to all social groups due to economic, geographical, social, or cultural inequalities.”
From Digital health technologies and major depressive disorder (2023) · cites this paper as [146]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Content analysis and thematic analysis: Implications for conducting a qualitative descriptive study
Vaismoradi, M., Turunen, H., & Bondas, T. (2013) · Nursing & Health Sciences · doi:10.1111/nhs.12048 · Cited by 8,327
Mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic
Pfefferbaum, B., & North, C. S. (2020) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejmp2008017 · Cited by 4,378
Walker, E. R., McGee, R. E., & Druss, B. G. (2015) · JAMA Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.2502 · Cited by 2,976
Resources for mental health: scarcity, inequity, and inefficiency
Saxena, S., Thornicroft, G., Knapp, M., & Whiteford, H. (2007) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(07)61239-2 · Cited by 1,789 · cited 3×
“Authors observed that systemic issues, such as socio-economic inequality, lead to considerable structural barriers to access (18, 47, 48).”
BackgroundMachine learning in mental health: a scoping review of methods and applications
Shatte, A. B. R., Hutchinson, D. M., & Teague, S. J. (2019) · Psychological Medicine · doi:10.1017/s0033291719000151 · Cited by 1,047
Artificial intelligence for mental health and mental illnesses: an overview
Graham, S., Depp, C., Lee, E. E., Nebeker, C., Tu, X., Kim, H.-C., & Jeste, D. V. (2019) · Current Psychiatry Reports · doi:10.1007/s11920-019-1094-0 · Cited by 970
Torous, J., Jän Myrick, K., Rauseo-Ricupero, N., & Firth, J. (2020) · JMIR Mental Health · doi:10.2196/18848 · Cited by 946
Fiske, A., Henningsen, P., & Buyx, A. (2019) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/13216 · Cited by 857
Lattie, E. G., Adkins, E. C., Winquist, N., Stiles-Shields, C., Wafford, Q. E., & Graham, A. K. (2019) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/12869 · Cited by 843
Addressing collegiate mental health amid COVID-19 pandemic
Zhai, Y., & Du, X. Y. (2020) · Psychiatry Research · doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113003 · Cited by 702
Technology, autonomy, and manipulation
Susser, D., Rössler, B., & Nissenbaum, H. F. (2019) · Internet Policy Review · doi:10.14763/2019.2.1410 · Cited by 575
Predicting suicide following self-harm: systematic review of risk factors and risk scales
Chan, M. K. Y., Bhatti, H., Meader, N., Stockton, S., Evans, J., O'Connor, R. C., Kapur, N., & Kendall, T. (2016) · British Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.115.170050 · Cited by 501
Addressing the COVID-19 Pandemic in Populations With Serious Mental Illness
Druss, B. G. (2020) · JAMA Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.0894 · Cited by 494
Mohr, D. C., Weingardt, K. R., Reddy, M., & Schueller, S. M. (2017) · Psychiatric Services · doi:10.1176/appi.ps.201600541 · Cited by 365
Intelligent Assistive Technology for Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias: A Systematic Review
Ienca, M., Fabrice, J., Elger, B., Caon, M., Scoccia Pappagallo, A., Kressig, R. W., & Wangmo, T. (2017) · Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease · doi:10.3233/jad-161037 · Cited by 292
Self-citationKretzschmar, K., Tyroll, H., Pavarini, G., Manzini, A., Singh, I., & NeurOx Young People’s Advisory Group (2019) · Biomedical Informatics Insights · doi:10.1177/1178222619829083 · Cited by 270
Internet-delivered treatment for substance abuse: a multisite randomized controlled trial
Campbell, A. N. C., Nunes, E. V., Matthews, A. G., Stitzer, M., Miele, G. M., Polsky, D., Turrigiano, E., Walters, S., McClure, E. A., Kyle, T. L., et al. (2014) · American Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.13081055 · Cited by 263
Whittle, E. L., Fisher, K. R., Reppermund, S., Lenroot, R., & Trollor, J. N. (2017) · Journal of Mental Health Research in Intellectual Disabilities · doi:10.1080/19315864.2017.1408724 · Cited by 222
Martinez-Martin, N., & Kreitmair, K. (2018) · JMIR Mental Health · doi:10.2196/mental.9423 · Cited by 221
The value of autonomy in medical ethics
Varelius, J. (2006) · Medicine Health Care and Philosophy · doi:10.1007/s11019-006-9000-z · Cited by 198
Lee, Y., Yamashita, N., & Huang, Y. (2020) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3392836 · Cited by 195
Bolton, D. (2008) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/med/9780198565925.001.0001 · Cited by 182
Brain leaks and consumer neurotechnology
Ienca, M., Haselager, P., & Emanuel, E. (2018) · Nature Biotechnology · doi:10.1038/nbt.4240 · Cited by 175
Self-citationGentles, S. J., Lokker, C., & McKibbon, K. A. (2010) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/jmir.1390 · Cited by 158
Moon, J., Williford, A., & Mendenhall, A. N. (2017) · Children and Youth Services Review · doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.01.006 · Cited by 142
Ethical perspectives on recommending digital technology for patients with mental illness
Bauer, M., Glenn, T., Monteith, S., Bauer, R., Whybrow, P. C., & Geddes, J. R. (2017) · International Journal of Bipolar Disorders · doi:10.1186/s40345-017-0073-9 · Cited by 137
Bucci, S., Berry, N., Morris, R., Berry, K., Haddock, G., Lewis, S., & Edge, D. (2019) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00344 · Cited by 124
The futility of risk prediction in psychiatry
Mulder, R., Newton‐Howes, G., & Coid, J. W. (2016) · The British Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.116.184960 · Cited by 117
Allen, N. B., Nelson, B. W., Brent, D., & Auerbach, R. P. (2019) · Journal of Affective Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.jad.2019.03.044 · Cited by 115
Boonstra, T. W., Nicholas, J., Wong, Q. J. J., Shaw, F., Townsend, S., & Christensen, H. M. (2018) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/10131 · Cited by 108
Oversight of direct-to-consumer neurotechnologies
Wexler, A., & Reiner, P. B. (2019) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aav0223 · Cited by 105
Trust in and Ethical Design of Carebots: The Case for Ethics of Care
Chan, G. K. Y. (2020) · International Journal of Social Robotics · doi:10.1007/s12369-020-00653-w · Cited by 102
Torous, J., Firth, J., Huckvale, K., Larsen, M. E., Cosco, T. D., Carney, R., Chan, S., Pratap, A., Yellowlees, P., Wykes, T., et al. (2018) · Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease · doi:10.1097/nmd.0000000000000864 · Cited by 101
Conformity of Eating Disorders through Content Moderation
Feuston, J. L., Taylor, A. S., & Piper, A. M. (2020) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3392845 · Cited by 93
Griffiths, F., Bryce, C., Cave, J., Dritsaki, M., Fraser, J., Hamilton, K., Huxley, C., Ignatowicz, A., Kim, S. W., Kimani, P. K., et al. (2017) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/jmir.7154 · Cited by 85
Feuston, J. L., & Piper, A. M. (2018) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3274320 · Cited by 72
Slovák, P., Theofanopoulou, N., Cecchet, A., Cottrell, P. S., Bertran, F. A., Dagan, E., Edbrooke-Childs, J. H., & Isbister, K. (2018) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3274429 · Cited by 64
Rice, S., Robinson, J., Bendall, S., Hetrick, S. E., Cox, G., Bailey, E., Gleeson, J., & Álvarez‐Jiménez, M. (2016) · PubMed Central · Cited by 53
Doraiswamy, P. M., London, E., Varnum, P., HARVEY, B. F., Saxena, S., Tottman, S., Campbell, S. P., Ibanez, A. F., Manji, H. K., Olama, M. A. A. S. A., et al. (2019) · NAM Perspectives · doi:10.31478/201910b · Cited by 52
Ignatowicz, A., Slowther, A., Elder, P., Bryce, C., Hamilton, K., Huxley, C., Forjaz, V., Sturt, J. A., & Griffiths, F. E. (2018) · BMC Medical Ethics · doi:10.1186/s12910-018-0250-0 · Cited by 40
Exploring Indicators of Digital Self-Harm with Eating Disorder Patients
Pater, J. A., Farrington, B., Brown, A., Reining, L., Toscos, T. R., & Mynatt, E. D. (2019) · Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact. · doi:10.1145/3359186 · Cited by 40
Assessment of Digital Media Use in the Adolescent Psychiatric Evaluation
Carson, N. J., Gansner, M., & Khang, J. (2018) · Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America · doi:10.1016/j.chc.2017.11.003 · Cited by 38
Data protection and privacy the internet of bodies
Leenes, R. E., Brakel, R. E. V., Gutwirth, S., Hert, P. D., & Computers, P. A. D. P. 2. B. A. I. C. O. (2018) · Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) · Cited by 35
Digital tools for youth mental health
Uhlhaas, P. J., & Torous, J. B. (2019) · npj Digital Medicine · doi:10.1038/s41746-019-0181-2 · Cited by 35
Incorporating Mobile Phone Technologies to Expand Evidence-Based Care
Jones, D. J., Anton, M., Gonzalez, M., Honeycutt, A., Khavjou, O., Forehand, R., & Parent, J. (2015) · Cognitive and Behavioral Practice · doi:10.1016/j.cbpra.2014.06.002 · Cited by 32
Grant, C., Widnall, E., Cross, L., Simonoff, E. A., & Downs, J. M. (2020) · Research Involvement and Engagement · doi:10.1186/s40900-020-00219-0 · Cited by 32
O’Reilly, M. J., Levine, D. T., & Law, E. L. (2020) · Pastoral Care in Education · doi:10.1080/02643944.2020.1774635 · Cited by 30
Grové, C. (2019) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00281 · Cited by 21
Online ethics: where will the interface of mental health and the internet lead us?
Cosgrove, V. E., Gliddon, E., Berk, L., Grimm, D., Lauder, S., Dodd, S., Berk, M., & Suppes, T. M. (2017) · International Journal of Bipolar Disorders · doi:10.1186/s40345-017-0095-3 · Cited by 19
D’Alfonso, S., Phillips, J., Valentine, L., Gleeson, J., & Álvarez‐Jiménez, M. (2019) · JMIR Mental Health · doi:10.2196/14866 · Cited by 19
Heinsch, M., Geddes, J., Sampson, D. L., Brosnan, C., Hunt, S., Wells, H., & KAY‐LAMBKIN, F. J. (2019) · Ethics & Behavior · doi:10.1080/10508422.2019.1691003 · Cited by 19
Accessing Online Data for Youth Mental Health Research: Meeting the Ethical Challenges
Vallejos, E. P., Koene, A. R., Carter, C. J., Hunt, D. S., Woodard, C., Urquhart, L., Bergin, A., & Statache, R. (2017) · Philosophy & Technology · doi:10.1007/s13347-017-0286-y · Cited by 17
Confidentiality and Privacy for Smartphone Applications in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Wu, E., Torous, J. B., Hardaway, R., & Gutheil, T. G. (2016) · Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America · doi:10.1016/j.chc.2016.07.006 · Cited by 16
‘Nothing Comes between My Robot and Me’: Privacy and Human-Robot Interaction in Robotised Healthcare
Fosch‐Villaronga, E., Felzmann, H., Pierce, R. L., Conca, S. D., de Groot, A., del Castillo, A. P., & Robbins, S. (2019) · Hart Publishing eBooks · doi:10.5040/9781509926237.ch-004 · Cited by 13
Socio-Technical Aspirations for Children with Special Needs
Sharma, S., Avellan, T., Linna, J., Achary, K., Turunen, M., Hakulinen, J., & Varkey, B. (2020) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3396076 · Cited by 12
Privacy and Security Issues in Assistive Technologies for Dementia
Ienca, M., & Fosch‐Villaronga, E. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/med/9780190459802.003.0013 · Cited by 8
Self-citationLisa A. Marsch Develops Digital Interventions for the Treatment of Opioid Addiction
O'Hara, D. (2019) · PsycEXTRA Dataset · doi:10.1037/e511102019-001 · Cited by 2
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- Young, 2021, Coronavirus: Impact on Young People With Mental Health Needs
- 2020, Youth-Centred Digital Health Interventions: A Framework for Planning, Developing and Implementing Solutions With and for Young People
- 2020, Safeguarding Boys and Girls: When Chatbots Answer Their Private Questions
- Ienca, 2018, Cambridge analytica and online manipulation, Sci Am., 30, 384
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Exploring the Ethical Challenges of Conversational AI in Mental Health Care: Scoping Review
Rahsepar Meadi, M., Sillekens, T., Metselaar, S., van Balkom, A., Bernstein, J., & Batelaan, N. (2025) · JMIR Mental Health · doi:10.2196/60432 · Cited by 211
AI Chatbots in Digital Mental Health
Balcombe, L. (2023) · Informatics · doi:10.3390/informatics10040082 · Cited by 174
Potential and Pitfalls of Mobile Mental Health Apps in Traditional Treatment: An Umbrella Review
Koh, J., Tng, G. Y. Q., & Hartanto, A. (2022) · Journal of Personalized Medicine · doi:10.3390/jpm12091376 · Cited by 155
Advances in the use of virtual reality to treat mental health conditions
Bell, I. H., Pot-Kolder, R., Rizzo, A., Rus-Calafell, M., Cardi, V., Cella, M., Ward, T., Riches, S., Reinoso, M., Thompson, A., et al. (2024) · Nature Reviews Psychology · doi:10.1038/s44159-024-00334-9 · Cited by 140
Digital Phenotyping: Data-Driven Psychiatry to Redefine Mental Health
Oudin, A., Maatoug, R., Bourla, A., Ferreri, F., Bonnot, O., Millet, B., Schoeller, F., Mouchabac, S., & Adrien, V. (2023) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/44502 · Cited by 156
Metadata
- Authors
- Wies, B., Landers, C., & Ienca, M.
- Affiliations
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Ienca, Marcello
- ORCID
- Ienca, Marcello
- Venue
- Frontiers in Digital Health
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2021-09-06
- Volume
- 3
- Pages
- 697072-697072
- ISSN
- 2673-253X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8521997
- OpenAlex
- W3198532692
- Cited by
- 242
- References
- 57
- Citations by year
- 2026: 50 · 2025: 80 · 2024: 65 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 4.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Digital Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- ETH Zürich Research Collection
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (407740_187356/1, NRP77, 187356, 407740, 40158)
- Innosuisse - Schweizerische Agentur für Innovationsförderung
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations
- Keywords
- digital mental health, youth mental health, adolescents, ethical considerations, data privacy, clinical validation, user-centered design, mental health apps, neurotechnology, mental illness
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
