Literature Review

Moura I, Teles A, Silva F, Viana D, Coutinho L, Barros F, Endler M. Mental health ubiquitous monitoring supported by social situation awareness: A systematic review. J Biomed Inform. 2020 Jul;107:103454. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1532046420300824

In this article, the authors focus on the problem of evaluating social behaviors in relation to mental health through methods other than just self-reported information. As most of the information based on mental health is self-reported, the researchers want to find alternative ways to monitor social behaviors in order to support mental health. The researchers did a systematic review to see how the use of ubiquitous devices that monitor social behaviors for mental health performed. They used the six main digital libraries to find studies that fit this type of systematic review and selected 20 to analyze. From these 20 studies, the researchers were able to identify various social situations, and saw how the awareness of these social situations supported mental health monitoring, as well as the potential solutions provided. By using systems that are aware of social situations, they can understand what factors play into identifying their connection to mental health which can help this method in future development. 

In the end the researcher claimed that social situation-aware systems can potentially be a useful tool in regards to working with mental health, but they also stated that there are still apparent limitations that need to be overcome. This research is relevant to my objective as it shows how there are still variables regarding mental health that we don’t fully understand yet due to lack of information and by bringing more awareness we can better understand and work on mental health. 

Cook JA, Jonikas JA, Burke-Miller JK, Hamilton M, Falconer C, Blessing M, Aranda F, Johns G, Cauffield C. Randomized Controlled Trial of Self-Directed Care for Medically Uninsured Adults With Serious Mental Illness. Psychiatr Serv. 2023 Oct 1;74(10):1027-1036. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36987709/

In this article, the researchers performed a control study in order to see if self-directed care would be more beneficial to medically uninsured adults rather than receiving regular services in regards to helping them with their mental illnesses. The adults were randomly selected in the public mental health system where an equal number of people would receive self-directed care and the others regular services. They focused on ensuring they understood how they’d self-manage their mental health, as well as the support they had and what needs were met, or unmet. Results were checked at 6 and then 12 months for progress and cost difference was monitored as well in order to maintain equality. 

In the end, researchers concluded that the individuals in the self-directed care group had greater improvement than those in the control group with the cost of both groups being equal as well. This is especially helpful to adults with low income which is relevant to my health objective as one of the contributing factors to adults with serious mental illnesses not getting help is a lack of insurance and or funds. By providing a model that helps patients of low income to get the specific help they need, people may be more inclined to start getting the help they need.

Stupinski AM, Alshaabi T, Arnold MV, Adams JL, Minot JR, Price M, Dodds PS, Danforth CM. Quantifying Changes in the Language Used Around Mental Health on Twitter Over 10 Years: Observational Study. JMIR Ment Health. 2022 Mar 30;9(3):e33685. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35353049/

In this article the focus of the research is seeing how the way people talked about mental health changed over the course of a decade. The researchers performed an observational study on twitter where they aimed to find how much more awareness there was regarding mental health and hoped it showed a positive change towards the stigma and limited access to services surrounding mental health. For this study, the researchers went through 10% of all English tweets from 2010 to 2021 and measured the levels of positivity regarding mental health. Additionally, they found how much talk on mental health was based on social amplification by reviewing the ratio of original tweets and retweets. The results of these studies showed that mental health steadily became a popular topic as the years passed and through various campaigns awareness was raised and the stigma surrounding mental health was eliminated on twitter. 

This study shows a clear example of how talking about mental health in a positive way brings awareness and can create a space for people to feel comfortable opening up and seeking help. Social media is a resource used by many in this day in age, and is still raising awareness for mental health, but awareness needs to continue beyond social media as there is an abundance of groups that still feel that stigma towards mental health as the awareness may not have reached them yet as not everyone uses social media which is why we must continue bringing light to mental health.