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Paper short abstract

The presentation unpacks how digital therapeutics are envisioned as leading to a more accurate understanding of mental health through self-tracking, based on qualitative interviews with developers.

Paper long abstract

“Apps on prescription” have become part of the “digital psychiatry” (Pickersgill 2019) in Germany since 2020. These certified apps can be used by patients with a diagnosed illness such as depression or anxiety disorder. In this presentation, I unpack how, among other promises, digital therapeutics are presented as a tool to create a more precise picture of one’s own mental health as a user and for practitioners. Based on qualitative interviews with developers, I show how this promise is connected to a vision to deepen an understanding of mental illnesses by analysing aggregated user data for research in the future.

Digital self-tracking features are seen as easily accessible, usable daily and from everywhere empowering patients to continuously track one’s own symptoms and mood and visualising their mental health. In this narrative, a more accurate overview of one’s mental health is achieved as (1) it enables more consistency in data collection in comparison to analogue documents (quantity of data) and (2) it increases the quality of the data as data points are collected in the moment, instead of recollecting them days or weeks later. Developers also aim to fill in the blanks of the “black box” of the patient’s mental health between doctor’s appointments. Here tracking and showing one’s data is seen as a solution to let practitioners “see” how patients are doing in their daily lives and thus fill missing data points to create more quality time in meetings and better treatment.