Editorial: Factors influencing user engagement with digital mental health interventions
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Editorial on the Research Topic Factors influencing user engagement with digital mental health interventionsDigital mental health interventions (DMHIs) are a promising solution to increase access to mental health support and overcome barriers to traditional mental health care, including costs (1) and stigma (2, 3).However, despite DMHIs' potential, user engagement with them has been known to vary (4).There are various factors that can impact engagement, such as user-related factors (e.g., type and severity of mental health symptoms), intervention-related factors (e.g., type of content offered by the intervention), and technology-or environment-related factors (5).0This Research Topic on Factors Influencing User Engagement with Digital Mental Health Interventions includes 8 articles to further investigate the various factors influencing user engagement and to what extent current DMHIs take these factors into account.Using a variety of research methods, and focusing on a range of populations, this Research Topic presents new insights into factors that influence user engagement with DMHIs.For example, older adults may have little confidence or experience using technology (6), women from refugee backgrounds may prioritize inherently social mental health experiences over digital self-care apps (7), and lower-income family members may not have the required resources to access DMHIs, such as high-speed internet and a smartphone (1, 8).Articles in this Research Topic included different populations such as older adults, adolescents and students, Black women, people with schizophrenia, and mental health professionals.Raue et al. explored a message-based psychotherapy tool with 2,470 older adults and matched them with a cohort of younger adults aged 26-35 years to compare any differences in mental health improvements.They found that while cohorts did not differ in anxiety or depressive symptoms at the end of the study, younger adults experienced a quicker reduction in anxiety symptoms.Furthermore, older adults attended more days in treatment, but there were no differences between cohorts in app usage. McCall et al.conducted a focus group to inform the design of a mobile app tailored to Black women
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Literature suggests that age and previous experience with technology are two factors that may impact the perceived usability of digital health tools.
“Literature suggests that age and previous experience with technology are two factors that may impact the perceived usability of digital health tools.17,18”
From Design and Usability Assessment of a User-Centered, Modular Platform for Real-World Data Acquisition in Clinical Trials Involving Post-Bariatric Surgery Patients (2025) · cites this paper as [18]
The editorial (no page indicated) says older adults may have less confidence or experience using technology, and reports that prior experience with digital mental health interventions affected perceived trust in a chatbot. It discusses engagement and trust, not perceived usability, and its scope is digital mental health interventions rather than digital health tools generally. (LLM, conf=0.83)
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Self-citationObjective user engagement with mental health apps: systematic search and panel-based usage analysis
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“Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) are a promising solution to increase access to mental health support and overcome barriers to traditional mental health care, including costs (1) and stigma (2, 3).”
BackgroundIs There an App for That?: Ethical Issues in the Digital Mental Health Response to COVID-19
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Self-citationDigital Mental Health and Social Connectedness
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- Authors
- Borghouts, J., Pretorius, C., Ayobi, A., Abdullah, S., & Eikey, E. V.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- University College Dublin (IE)
- University College London (GB)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Corresponding author
- Borghouts, Judith
- Venue
- Frontiers in Digital Health
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2023-04-18
- Volume
- 5
- Pages
- 1197301-1197301
- ISSN
- 2673-253X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10152548
- OpenAlex
- W4366278350
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 1
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Digital Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Keywords
- digital mental health interventions, user engagement, barriers to mental health care, older adults, Black women, mobile application design, refugee women, low-income households, access to technology, schizophrenia, mental health professionals, anxiety and depressive symptoms
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