Objective:

To introduce the Mental Health App Crisis Support Assessment Framework (MHACSAF) for evaluating crisis support in mental health applications, highlighting the need for effective crisis support.

Approach:

Key Findings:

• Inter-rater reliability was strong (Fleiss’ kappa = 0.87).
• Mean total scores for the apps ranged from 13.0 to 40.3, with no app achieving 'Good' or 'Excellent' classification.
• Wysa performed best but still had notable gaps in accessibility and localization, such as [specific examples].
• Technical accessibility for users with disabilities was nearly absent across all products.
• Crisis resources were often difficult to access, with some links leading to broken or inaccessible websites.

Interpretation:

Limitations:

• The study evaluated only six commercial apps, limiting generalizability.
• The assessment was conducted on iOS platforms only, which may not represent all users.

Conclusion:

MHACSAF provides a reproducible methodology for benchmarking crisis support in mental health applications.

Attribution Notice

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