Proceedings of The 2nd Global Conference on Women’s Studies
Year: 2021
DOI:
Strategies to Improve Women’s Wellbeing: An Exploratory Study of Supportive Mental Health Apps
Dolores Alemany-Martínez
ABSTRACT:
Smartphones permeate our culture. With the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the development of mental health apps has accelerated enormously. The present study aims at exploring their potential and efficiency in improving women’s wellbeing by following and online survey, updated estimates and app analytics from Happify, Shine and Moodfit. These apps contain a lot of information that can help their users to better understand their condition. A patient’s smartphone can be transformed into a monitoring and therapeutic platform, capturing mental health symptons in real time and providing immediate supportive therapy. Apps are not a substitute to traditional face-to-face therapy. However, they can become a gateway to the awareness of subsequent care. They can also help psychologists to enhance the progress of patients. E-mental health apps provide guided activities and motivating tracking in contexts of maternal depression, pregnancy care, patients with breast cancer, stress reduction and psychiatric illnesses, improving considerably women’s wellbeing and, what is more, helping destigmatize women’s mental health care.
Keywords: cognitive behavioral therapy; mental self-care; e-mental health apps; alternative psychological therapies.