Digital mental health, apps and AI in a community service (MEQ)

(i) Evaluating and prescribing the app — 5 marks

Use the APA app evaluation framework and climb it in order. Background and access (developer, funding, cost, does it run on his device), then privacy and security, then clinical foundation, then engagement style, then whether any output reaches your clinical decision-making. Assessment stops at the first failed rung.^[8]

Expect the clinical foundation rung to fail. Of 73 top-ranking consumer apps audited, 64% claimed effectiveness, scientific language supported 44% of claims, a third of ostensibly scientific techniques could not be validated, and exactly one app cited a published paper.^[9]

Prescribe it like a prescription: indication, named product, frequency and duration, a review date, the outcome that would make you stop, and a documented consent conversation about data. Then ask at every review whether he is still using it — patients abandon apps silently.^[8][7]