Mental health app puts resources at fingertips

When UNC School of Medicine student Eddie Liu was an undergraduate at Duke University, he decided to search the word “depression” in the App Store and see what popped up — the results were limited.

He said he decided he could design something better, even though he had not created an app before. 

“I looked at the other apps and they were all pretty horrible,” Liu said. “Specifically, they were either expensive, ineffective or ugly—or a combination of all three.”

Now, during UNC's Mental Health Awareness week, this app is readily available.

Released two years ago via Android, MoodTools is now available for iPhones. The app has had more than 125,000 downloads worldwide in the past year, and Liu continues to improve it with software updates.

He said one of the app's most unique features is a suicide prevention tool, which contains a guide for dealing with suicidal thoughts and allows users to list warning signs and emergency contact information.

Guided meditation, TED Talks and a diagnostic test are also available in the app.

Of the 25 percent of U.S. adults with mental illnesses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said anxiety and mood disorders are among the most common.

And due to UNC's competitive nature, Jessica Bartley, technological assessment coordinator and psychologist at Campus Health’s Counseling and Psychological Services, said anxiety is also the most common mental illness on campus.

She said apps like this create self-awareness earlier on that could enable students to then seek help from a professional, and CAPS plans to explore the app format in the future.

“I think if we can have the information out there through apps and technology that that will hopefully get people in the door to then connect and develop those relationships,” Bartley said.

The CAPS website, which will be redesigned, also includes a screening test that provides next steps for UNC students.

But Jack Register, executive director of the North Carolina branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said virtual resources cannot be the only solution.

“We want to make sure that systematically that we're not giving the message that this technology is going to replace psychiatric care," he said. 

Liu said the app can be used alongside other psychological services when available and expand upon treatment. 

“Most people with depression don’t get treatment, so we knew for some people this was going to be their introduction to what depression treatment is,” he said. “But we also wanted to design it so that it could be used as homework."

Register said the technology combined with counseling could help undergraduates with pre-existing mental illnesses track their symptoms — which usually appear by the age of 24.

“We want to make sure that institutions like UNC and like all college campuses are able to deal with that, so we don’t have tragedies starting through the state because we weren’t aware," he said.

Keadija Wiley is a UNC senior and undergraduate research assistant for the Student Experience in Everyday Life Lab, which conducts research on the effects of everyday life on students’ mental and physical health. She said having mental health information available on an app could reduce stigma.

“It’s right at your fingertips,” she said. 

But she also said it could lead to an incorrect self-diagnosis.

“Some people can look things up and then be like, ‘I have this,’ or ‘I don’t have this,’ and maybe not seek help when really they do need help,” she said.

Register said virtual tests may not pick up on the difference between long-term disorders and short-term traumatic or situational events such as a bad breakup or a car accident.

Less than 50 percent of MoodTools’ users are from the United States, Liu said — others coming from the U.K., Australia, Canada and India. He said the app could provide treatment in countries that lack resources.

“For some people, the internet, their phones are the only source of help they would get,” Liu said. 

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