Professional development tips and examples of the top market offers — everything you need to build your own mental health app.

1. How to Develop
a Mental Health
Solution

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3. Six types of mental
health solutions
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General mental health
apps
They help users be aware of
their emotional health.
This is accomplished with a set
of features that help users
maintain good habits, break
bad habits, and control their
mood.
Education &
assessment apps
They provide information on
mental health disorders.
For the most part, they share
materials commonly used by
mental health practitioners to
identify mental health
disorders.
Mental health disorder
apps
They are for people with
depression or anxiety.
They offer programs that
resemble traditional forms of
treatment, using techniques
like mood monitoring or
cognitive behavioral therapy.

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Self-improvement
apps
They help users understand and
improve their mental health.
They also work for users who are
mentally fit and want to stay that
way. They offer breathing
techniques, meditation, and
audio relaxation.
Treatment adherence
apps
They support patients that can
manage their conditions on
their own.
These apps offer reminders
about taking medications and
allow users to journal their
feelings to recognize and
prevent crises.
Peer connection
apps
They connect users to those who
share the same mental health
diagnoses.
These apps are great for
communication and support. They
aren’t a part of a traditional forms
of mental health treatment. But
they are very working.

6. Features of a mental
health app
Here’s the list of features to be included in an app to help
users manage their mental health.

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● Calendars and checklists
A calendar and a checklist can help users keep their lives in order. As a bonus, you can add a reward system
for completing tasks. This way, users will feel motivated to do a little more the next day.
● Sleep trackers
A sleep tracker or a sleep analysis feature can help those working on their sleeping habits. This feature
provides users with insights about their sleep patterns and help them maintain stability and productivity.
● Trigger checkers
A feature for marking down triggering situations can help users analyze them and devise a set of appropriate
responses. Users can then discuss these situations with a therapist.

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● Reminders
Some people have to take medicine at specific times throughout the day. A set of reminders with alerts can
help them stay on top of that.
● Relaxation techniques
Breathing techniques, guided and unguided meditation, prayers, and positive affirmations are just a few of the
features you might incorporate into your app.
● Like-minded communities
Incorporate a community feature into your application — offer text or video chats, let people share progress
and set goals, and so on. This can help users know they’re not alone.

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● Journals
Journaling helps people sort out their thoughts. As not everyone is comfortable physically writing down their
thoughts and feelings, a journaling feature can be a secure solution.
● Sharing data
A mental health mobile app can allow users to share their moods on social media, directly with family
members, or with healthcare providers. It can also allow users to send data by email in different formats.
● Matching users and therapists
After gathering a user’s medical data through a set of questions, a mental health app can use an algorithm to
recommend suitable therapists.

10. Examples of the best
mental health apps
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iMoodJournal is a personal journal that lets users record their moods,
symptoms, sleep patterns, activity levels, and medication intake.
Coping with bipolar disorder

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The nOCD mobile application helps to mitigate negative effects of OCD by
combining mindfulness and exposure and response prevention (ERP).
Tackling obsessive-compulsive disorder

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PTSD Coach was created by the VA’s National Center for PTSD. The application
offers PTSD self-assessment, positive self-talk, anger management, and support.
Addressing posttraumatic stress disorder

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UCSF PRIME is a mobile application developed at the University of California in
San Francisco. It aims to create a community of young adults with schizophrenia.
Managing schizophrenia

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Recovery Record helps people recover from eating disorders and perceive their
bodies in a more positive way.
Combating eating disorders

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Twenty-Four Hours a Day offers 366 meditations from the book to help people
take their minds off addictions.
Overcoming addictions

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Talkspace is a mobile application that makes therapy portable and affordable.
Users can discuss their issues with a licensed therapist as often as they need.
Tackling depression

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MindShift was developed specifically for teenagers and young adults suffering
from stress and anxiety. It helps users change the way they see anxiety.
Relieving stress & anxiety

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Headspace offers various types of meditation – both guided and unguided – to
help users understand themselves better and tackle life’s obstacles more easily.
Achieving mindfulness through meditation

20. How mental health apps
generate revenue
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Most mental health apps generate revenue. They use different strategies to do that:
1. Paid downloads. Around 41% of mental health apps are available for purchase. The average cost is
$3.03. Some providers offer a suite of related applications along with their paid apps
2. In-app purchases. Around 79% of apps (free and paid) offer in-app purchases. Even when an app
is advertised as free, the greater part of features are available with an in-app purchase.
3. Subscription. Often, access to the full content and functionality of an app is provided via a
subscription model. The monthly price for Headspace is $12.00, for example.
4. In-app advertising. Ads within a mental health mobile application generate revenue. In most
cases, ads appear as full-screen banner images or widgets.
5. External links. Apps can also offer links to related services and products such as books, podcasts,
and MP3 downloads.

22. Developing mental
health mobile apps
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23. “
The cost of developing your own mental health mobile
app mostly depends on two factors: the set of features
you decide to add and the number of hours spent
building the app.

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The location of hired developers will largely determine the hourly rate
● In the US, app developers charge from $50 to $250 an hour.
● The average hourly rate for web development in Australia is $50 to $150.
● Agencies in Western Europe and the UK provide their services at $35 to $170 per hour.
● Eastern European developers charge $20 to $150 per hour.
● Indian companies charge from $10 to $80 an hour.
You can estimate the cost of developing a mobile app. But no professional development
company can provide you with an exact quote before discussing the details.

25. “A mobile app is to be secure, so that users’ mental
health data isn’t at the risk of being exposed.
Laws place protections around patient data and
healthcare facilities, establishing security standards
to protect medical records.
For an app to comply with these laws — HIPAA, the
GDPR, and PIPEDA — stored and shared data must be
encrypted at all stages.

26. If you’re thinking of developing a mental health mobile
app or you need any consultation, let us know via
hello@steelkiwi.com
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