People aren't going to use it if it sucks or isn't giving them value. I looked into Beating the Blues a while ago - it's not exactly a great experience. Being reminded just isn't enough.
> Can an app do a substantially better job than books?
I think so.
Books are passive content that you consume in your own time. And, it certainly is helpful. But an app can do so much more towards offering a much richer, more engaging experience. But - and this is crucial - you have to get it right. And I think it is MUCH easier to get a book right, than an app. A book is just the content - an app is a manifestation of that content; if the book could talk, what would it say? ask? how would it do it and how often?
We'll see. My side project is to scratch some CBT & behavioral itches I have had with an app. I could be entirely wrong, but I wont know till I finish and see if it is of use for me.
Hrm, I would not identify it as an appification of CBT - You can use it to help implement CBT or other behavioral/cognitive changes, but the actual understanding would need to be done previously, to get the most benefit. Although I suppose even without any previous knowledge or awareness, some value could be derived.
I have a scheduled time and place for meeting a doctor. Not going will inconvenience many people, so there's a lot of social pressure to go. I've already put it in my calendar, so mentally I've accepted that I'll be doing this for a couple hours. When I go, the next meeting will be scheduled, locking me into a virtuous cycle of commitment.
An online thing I can do on my own time? Ha! We've gotten pretty good at ignoring reminder emails, no set time was put into place, and there's no set rhythm.
The "right" way to test the effectiveness of the program is to still get people scheduled to go to a doctor's office, but instead of talking to a doctor, you use a computer (and schedule the next visit).
For people like me, the main advantage of college wasn't access to the professor's, it's the set timeframe, place, and penalties for not showing up. Same sort of thing applies here I think
MoodGym and Beating the Blues have some evidence behind them. NICE was recommending Beating the blues because they have some evidence of efficacy for it.
Maybe there's a simple fix. Something like Flo to keep people engaged with it, or some kind of gamifaction.
Or maybe Recovery College combined with online CBT?
You know how 'traditional chinese medicine' came about? Mao needed to invent something to give to the peasants that wasn't expensive as real health care.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...
Edit: Perhaps what you mean is that the Western notion of Chinese medicine as a viable alternative to Western medicine was invented by Mao? That might have some shred of truth. But it's a very narrowly defined truth, and a very semantic one.
It's more useful to think of memories as Michael Bay's version of "Pearl harbor".
An interesting excerpt: "Take-up of computerised CBT was low, despite regular calls to encourage participants to use the programmes. The median number of sessions completed was two out of eight for Beating the Blues and one out of six for MoodGYM. Only 18% of people who started Beating the Blues completed all modules and 16% for MoodGYM."
Online CBT definitely is not effective if patients don't complete it despite receiving phone calls. I can imagine that getting the motivation to log in and do it is really difficult when you're already feeling hopeless-- even not-depressed people have enough trouble building and sticking to habits as it is.
But I still wonder if online CBT was effective for the small portion of participants who did complete it? What were the characteristics of those who did complete the app? Perhaps we can learn something.
CBT app builders should also consider that self-care options for depression have existed for a long time in the form of books. Can an app do a substantially better job than books? The idea of solving medical issues remotely has been tried for decades.