ArticleInternet interventions2021
Terms and conditions apply: Critical issues for readability and jargon in mental health depression apps.
Article in Internet interventions, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Psychological consultation apps in Saudi Arabia: A study for experts' evaluation and users' points of view.PloS one · 2025Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMental health services are turning to technology to ease the resource burden, but privacy policies are hard to understand potentially compromising consent for people with mental health problems. The FDA recommends a reading grade of 8.
objectiveTo investigate and improve the accessibility and acceptability of mental health depression app privacy policies.
methodsA mixed methods study using quantitative and qualitative data to improve the accessibility of app privacy policies. Service users completed assessments and focus groups to provide information on ways to improve privacy policy accessibility, including identifying and rewording jargon. This was supplemented by comparisons of mental health depression apps with social media, music and finance apps using readability analyses and examining whether GDPR affected accessibility.
resultsService users provided a detailed framework for increasing accessibility that emphasised having critical information for consent. Quantitatively, most app privacy policies were too long and complicated for ensuring informed consent (mental health apps mean reading grade = 13.1 (SD = 2.44)). Their reading grades were no different to those for other services. Only 3 mental health apps had a grade 8 or less and 99% contained service user identified jargon. Mental health app privacy policies produced for GDPR weren't more readable and were longer.
conclusionsApps specifically aimed at people with mental health difficulties are not accessible and even those that fulfilled the FDA's recommendation for reading grade contained jargon words. Developers and designers can increase accessibility by following a few rules and should, before launching, check whether the privacy policy can be understood.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.