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.
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“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]
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“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]
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“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
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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
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