Service Attributes and Acceptability of Digital and Nondigital Depression Management Methods Among Individuals With Depressive Symptoms: Survey Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Academic research on digital mental health tends to focus on its efficacy and effectiveness, with much less attention paid to user preferences and experiences in real-world settings. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to analyze service characteristics that service users value and compare the extent to which various digital and nondigital mental health treatments and management methods fulfill users' expectations. METHODS: A total of 114 people with at least moderate levels of depressive symptoms (as measured by Patient Health Questionnaire-9 score ≥10) completed a web-based questionnaire measuring their awareness and adoption of digital mental health services and their valuation of 15 psychological service attributes, including effectiveness, credibility, waiting time, and more. They were also assessed on their expectations toward seven common mental health treatments and management methods, including (1) face-to-face psychological intervention, (2) medication, (3) guided internet-based psychological intervention, (4) face-to-face counseling service, (5) self-guided mental health apps for depression, (6) self-help bibliotherapy, and (7) psychological intervention via videoconferencing. RESULTS: A Friedman test with a Dunn posttest showed the average importance rank of "effectiveness" was significantly higher than all other measured attributes. "Privacy," "credibility," and "cost" were ranked as equally important. Participants rated face-to-face psychological intervention the most effective management method, while other digital management methods were perceived as less effective. Medication was perceived as the least appealing method, while other methods were deemed equally appealing. Face-to-face psychological intervention, medication, and counseling were considered less satisfactory due to their higher costs and longer waiting times when compared to digital services. Repeated measures ANOVA showed some forms of management method were more likely to be adopted, including guided internet-based psychological intervention, psychological intervention via videoconferencing, face-to-face psychological intervention, and face-to-face counseling services provided by a counselor as compared to self-guided mobile apps, self-help bibliotherapy, and medication. CONCLUSIONS: The study highlights the importance of considering multiple service attributes beyond effectiveness in depression management methods, despite effectiveness being regarded as the most crucial factor using the rank method. Compared to nondigital services, digital services were identified as having specific strengths as perceived by users. Future dissemination and promotion efforts may focus on debunking myths of guided internet-based psychological intervention as a less effective option and promoting the particular service strengths of digital services.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".