This presentation discusses developing an app called Appspirin to help manage student mental health. It aims to make accessing mental health care as easy as taking an aspirin. The presentation outlines the problem of underuse and overuse of counseling, explores stigma around mental health, and details the evolution of the app's scope from streamlining counseling appointments to stress tracking and reduction techniques. Findings show concerns around overmedication and mixed feelings about therapy. Future work includes fully developing the app, extending it to other universities, frequent updates, and pilot testing. The goal is to ease users into therapeutic strategies and help them independently manage their mental health.

1. Appspirin
Managing student
mental health
Jung-Wei Chen
Molly Robison
Steve Weber, Advisor

2. This Presentation
Problem
Evolution
Findings
Future work

3. Problem

4. Inspiration
Depression & Intertemporal choice

5. Problem
Counseling
Underuse Overuse
Most Days Finals Week

6. Problem
Mental Health Stigma
“Now, let's see what your problem
is...”
“Try some pills and see which ones
won't turn you into an addict.”
“Just shut up and deal with it.”

7. Our goal
Problem: Mental health care is
serious and scary
Solution: Make it as simple as taking
an aspirin

8. Evolution

9. Evolution
Scope 1:
Get more people
into counseling
- Streamline appointment process
- Improve Tang Center resources

10. Tang Center

11. Tang Center

12. Tang Center

13. Tang Center

14. Evolution
Scope 2:
Surprise!
You have mental health!
- Increase awareness
- Break down barriers to seeking help

15. Evolution
Final Scope:
Stress tracking and stress-reduction
techniques
- Check-in with stress levels
- Suggests strategies

16. Findings

17. Findings
People are concerned about
overmedication
- Don't want to become dependent
- Dislike idea of drugs

18. Findings
People use entertainment to de-
stress
- Watching videos , etc
- Different people have different coping
methods
- Not very beneficial, but…

19. Findings
People have mixed feelings about
therapy
- Would support someone they knew in
therapy
- Reluctant to let others know if they
personally had therapy

20. Findings
Stress is 'normal'

21. Findings
People aren’t sure what therapy
entails
- “There's lots of talking?”
- “I guess they help you solve your
problems.”

22. Findings
People value mental health

23. Future

24. Future work
Build out the app
- Actual phone app, not web-based
- Fully-functional, all features
- Scalable for large populations

25. Future work
Extend to other universities
- For now focus on college; may extend
to high school

26. Future work
Frequent updates: keep users
coming back
- Reduce churn rate (retain users)
- Add new content such as strategies,
information/resources

27. Future Work
Easing in and graduating users
- Start with familiar activities
- Suggest more therapeutic strategies
- Help users make these decisions on
their own

28. Future work
Pilot test
Have a group of students use app for at
least a month, then gather results of how
well it actually works

29. Future work
Context Awareness & Wearables
- Catch you on the way down
- Warn you in precarious situations

30. Questions?