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Date
2023
Abstract
The prevalence of mental health disorders in Vermont continues to be an economic burden, especially in Addison County. The Addison County, VT Community Health Improvement Plan 2022-2025 identified “Access to Mental Health Services” as the top priority with a general concern regarding the affordability and demand of such services, and shortage of providers in the general community. Consequently, the shortage of mental health services along with the coronavirus pandemic resulted in a mental illness epidemic which led to an accelerated growth of self-guided therapy-based mental health apps. Most apps are affordable, accessible, and prioritize patient privacy which overcomes barriers to traditional mental health treatments such as cost, access, and stigma. Thus, the utilization of mental health apps not only offer a cost-efficient method for delivering empirically supported mental health interventions, but also serve as a potential solution in alleviating the mental health burden due to staff shortages across Vermont. However, such apps continue to be underutilized potentially due to provider and patient uncertainty in the effectiveness or credibility of such methods. Hence, providers, especially in-house psychologists/psychiatrists/behavior health specialists within primary care settings, require further advanced training on the APA framework as a screening tool to further guide the decision-making process around current evidence-based mental health apps and their potential use for low-risk psychiatric patients who are on their waiting list. The primary goal of this project is to generate a handout listing and briefly describing evidence-based and peer-reviewed therapy-based mental health apps that target various psychiatric conditions commonly encountered in a primary care setting in Addison County, VT using the OneMind PsyberGuide database and the updated APA evaluation framework criteria as guides. This handout can then serve as an accessible resource for both providers and patients seeking quality therapy-based mental health apps.
Clinical Site
Primary Care - Vergennes
Keywords
Mental Health, Mental Health Apps, PsyberGuide, APA framework, Depression, Vermont, Vergennes, Addison County, Shortage
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Disciplines
Counselor Education | Medical Education | Primary Care | Psychiatry and Psychology
Recommended Citation
Tapales, Althea Jem Darbin, "Is there an app for that? Introducing Self-Guided Therapy-Based Mental Health Apps in a Primary Care Setting" (2023). Family Medicine Clerkship Student Projects. 890.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/890
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Counselor Education Commons, Medical Education Commons, Primary Care Commons, Psychiatry and Psychology Commons