Mental health issues have always existed and affect a significant proportion of the global population. The World Health Organisation 2020 estimated that close to a billion persons are afflicted with one form of mental disorder or another. These issues became more pronounced due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted the health care services, and thus, sufferers had limited access to help or sometimes refused to seek help due to stigma.
Mental health apps have grown to bridge the gap as they are convenient for patients and provide relief.
According to Statista, the global spending on mental health apps in 2020 was about $270 million, an increase of 32.5% from the previous year. In 2022 it is expected to generate close to half a billion dollars in consumer spending.
This article will show you how to develop a mental health app, its market trends, and cost of development.
Trends in Mental Health Apps for 2023
Mental health issues are varied and unique from person to person. Depending on the year, some issues become more prominent. So which trends should you look out for in 2023?
Before the pandemic outbreak, people handled their mental health issues privately. Post-pandemic, people no longer feel stigmatized for sharing their struggles with depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and esteem issues. There is greater awareness of mental health and the need to have a sound mind.
Good mental health boosts productivity. The World Health Organisation reported that about 1 trillion dollars are lost in economic productivity from anxiety and depression alone. However, investing in mental health can yield five times the investment.
Types of Mental Health Apps
Here are the different types of mental health applications.
Meditation Apps
Meditation Apps boost tranquility and offer several mental health benefits to users. Some of the most common mental health issues are related to low moods from depression and anxiety. These disorders increased by 25% in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. People are looking towards meditation apps to clear their heads and lift their moods to combat these problems. Calm, one of the best-known meditation apps, and its parent company has about 4 million subscribers and was valued at about $2 billion.
Sleep Monitoring Apps
Studies show that adults need about 7 hours of sleep. Unfortunately, most people are getting less sleep. Working overtime, social media addiction, and other late-night activities prevent people from having a sound sleep. Lack of sleep has been shown to lead to diabetes, depression, obesity, etc.
Sleep monitoring apps help to track sleep patterns and can induce sleep. These apps work by restricting access to social media apps after a certain hour or playing slow songs to help a person fall asleep quicker.
Examples are Sleep Cycle and PrimeNap.
Cognitive Skills Improvement Apps
For sufferers of depression and other mental inhabiting disorders, these apps help them focus their minds and sharpen their focus. These apps, including riddles and brain teasers, help improve memory. Examples are Headspace and PsychologyCompass.
Symptoms tracker
Apps that track symptoms gather data such as sleep patterns, behavioral patterns, and physical activities to help detect the onset of a disease. These apps put the user in charge of monitoring their health.
Furthermore, doctors can use these apps to collect the necessary data for proper analysis and diagnosis. Examples include MoodFit and Moodkit.
What is a Mental Health Application?
A mental health app is a software tool used to monitor, analyze and assist persons afflicted with psychological or psychiatric problems. These problems are not limited to stress disorders, anxiety, depression, mood swings, or addictions.
Mental health apps are not substitutes for clinical examination by a qualified professional. Rather they are useful tools to help patients monitor their health themselves and to provide live data to doctors and consultants.
In addition, these apps contain features such as diaries and notifications and provide video/audio content that relaxes the mind and provides a positive outlook to depressed persons.
The benefits of mental wellness apps include:
- Anonymity
- Convenience
- Affordability
- Constant support
- Proper diagnosis
Features of a Mental Health App
Mental health apps, like other health apps, help therapists and patients monitor and track symptoms. For a Mental health apps, some features make them unique. Let's look at these features.
Sign up/User Profiles
User profiles outline a user's unique identity concerning his mental health. Information such as allergies, full name, address, age, gender, and disorders are important data that help psychiatrists make informed decisions to help patients. The signup process must be as smooth and simple as possible. A complex sign-up process might be off-putting for some people.
Self-monitoring
Even though one of the most important uses of a Mental Health App is to enable doctors to monitor a patient's health, the patient can monitor his health with the aid of the data collected by these apps. The app should contain trackers to monitor moods, symptoms, eating patterns, physical activities, etc. There should be set parameters that users can utilize to detect if their health is improving or if they have to consult a professional.
Diary
It is important to include a journal for users to take stock of their thoughts and express themselves in their own words. You can make your diary unique by including voice notes, pictures, drawings, etc. Allowing these features means people suffering from any other physical disability like dyslexia, autism, or any other learning disability can express their emotions.
Notifications/Reminders
Notifications remind users of doctor’s appointments, to take drugs, relaxation time, group meetings, and reminders to exercise. Be careful not to overload the app with too many notifications. Some patients feel stressed out seeing too many notifications.
Sharing
Helps users broadcast their health progress, moods, and challenges to people such as friends, followers, relatives, and doctors. The app needs to have cross-platform abilities to enable sharing on different platforms.
Audio/Video Content
Mental health apps with video/audio content are great as they are visually appealing and help improve moods. The video/audio content can contain lessons, meditation, and other self-help tips. Doctors can also share videos or even video calls with patients enabling virtual consultation.
Third-Party integrations
If you want your mental health app to also track vital signs like heart rate and blood pressure, you must integrate a link between the app and wearable devices such as wrist watches that track these vital signs. An example is Apple’s Healthkit wristwatch which collects fitness and health data.
How to Create a Mental Health App?
Developing a mental health app is similar to other app development. However, mental health app is a niche field, and you must carefully factor this into the development cycle. Let’s break down these steps.
Discovery/Market Research
In conducting discovery, you must gather information on various mental health issues afflicting your target audience. You should consult health care professionals to give you insight into these problems.
On the business side, you should find out competing apps, the strengths and weaknesses of those apps, and what users expect in a mental health app. Gathering and analyzing these data helps you build a unique product that is attractive to users.
Monetization
While it might seem weird to profit from other people’s suffering, you must remember why you are building the app. Building and maintaining an app costs lots of money, and you need to profit from your investment. Monetization helps you generate revenue on your app and can be in any of the following forms.
App download fees
Simply put, users have to pay a fee to get the app. Use competitive pricing in setting prices for the app. Provide more value for money for your customers by adding useful features to help them manage their health optimally.
Subscription fees
Using this model, you can set a monthly/yearly fee for people to use the app/service. If you want, the subscription can be categorized into basic, medium, and premium. An advantage of the subscription model is predictable/consistent fee generation.
In-app purchase
For this method, the app is downloaded for free, which gives access to basic features. To enjoy advanced features, users would have to pay for the privilege.
Ads
Monetization through ads happens when you allow other brands to place their ads on the mental health app and make money off the ads. Ensure that the app is manageable with a few ads. Disturbing ads may stress the mind and induce anxiety in people.
Hiring Developers
You need to hire the best hands to develop your app. The development team helps you from the discovery stage to the testing stage.
A cost-effective way to develop the app is to offshore the development team, which saves you additional overhead costs of stationery and equipment. A development team like Code & Care based in Eastern Europe delivers quality projects at pocket-friendly rates.
Development/Design
At this stage, the app idea begins to form. The earlier discussed features are put into a workable model for the app. The design involves the creation of images, videos, text, and colors to create a visually appealing app. Ensure that the user interface is smooth and easy to understand for users.
Another point is to ensure that the app is enabled for cross-platform operation so users can access the service on all platforms.
Testing
Involves quality assurance processes to verify the app's performance, functionality, and security. It is during testing that glitches and bugs are detected and removed. Since user data is involved, it is important to ensure that confidential information is not hacked.
Launch the App
This is the stage where the app becomes available to the public for downloads on app stores. You must embark on aggressive marketing to bring the product to the market. Collaborate with doctors and mental health institutions to recommend the mental health app to their patients.
Support/Maintenance
After launching the app, the development process is still ongoing. Periodic updates and security checks keep the app functional and bug-free.
Building a Mental Health App: Tech Stack
In developing the mental health app, selecting a tech stack that helps your product function optimally and scale is necessary. A wrong choice of tech stack can restrict the capabilities of your mental health app.
See the tech stack to choose from.
- Hosting: AWS, GoogleCloud, Microsoft Azure.
- Databases: MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL.
- Front-end development: Angular, ReactJS.
- Back-end development: Node.JS, PHP, Django (Python)
- Mobile app development: Android-Java, IOS-Swift
- Location and tracking: Google Maps or Core location app
- Payment options: (depends on your choice of platform)
- Calendar: Google Calendar, Zoho, Nylas.
- Video calling: Twillio, Now
Cost of Developing a Mental Health App
The cost of developing mental health apps depends greatly on the complexity of the mental health app you want. Integrating premium features in the app will attract higher costs.
Additionally, the choice of a development team, whether in-house or offshore software development teams, will impact costs.
As an estimate, assuming you want a premium mental health app, then you could be spending about $100,000 in development.
Conclusion
The increased awareness of mental wellness is fueling AI-driven solutions. The opportunities in developing mental health apps bring profit and social service benefits. To be a key player in this industry, you need an experienced and capable partner.
Mental health affects everyone at some point in our lives. A commonly quoted statistic in the UK is that one in four people suffer the impact of mental ill health. In the U.S., 80 percent of workers experience stress at some point every day, and anxiety and depression cost the world $1 trillion in lost productivity annually.
Governments and healthcare providers need to find new ways to deliver mental health services. Digital healthcare solutions, including smartphone apps, are some of the most common ways to support those who need and want to access more help and support.
Increasing adoption of behavior health software, availability of government funding, government initiatives to encourage EHR adoption in behavioral health organizations, favorable behavioral health reforms in the US, and high demand for mental health services amidst provider shortage are the major factors driving the growth of this market.What the Behavioral Health Software Market Looks Like?Predicted to grow at a CAGR of 14.8 % during the forecast period, the global behavioral health software market is estimated to reach USD 2.31 billion by 2022.
In 2017, North America is expected to dominate the mental health software market, followed by Europe.What are the Behavioral Health Software Market Segments?This report segments the behavioral health software market into component, delivery model, functionality, end user, and region.
Based on component, the market is segmented into software and support services.
The support services segment is expected to account for the largest share of the market in 2017.
The recurring requirement of support services (such as for software upgrades and maintenance) is the major factor supporting its growth.Based on delivery model, the mental health software market is segmented into ownership models and subscription models.
High growth in the clinical functionality segment is attributed to the increasing government initiatives to boost adoption of this software by clinicians to provide quality care to their patients at lower costs.Based on the end user, the behavioral health software market is segmented into providers, payers, and patients.
