The Role of Mobile Applications in Delivery of Mental Health Services: A Review Study

New technologies have developed health service delivery. Development of smartphone and mobile applications (apps) all around the world has increased the opportunity to access the mental health services. The aim of the study was to introduce the mental health apps based on the evidence.
This is a review article. A comprehensive literature search was performed in online databases including SID, Iran Medex, Magiran, PubMed, Psycinfo, Google Scholar, Science Direct, and Scopus.
In this study, 12 of 6423 abstracts identified through the research were founded by inclusion criteria. The present Apps provided services in the field of psycho-education, assessment, intervention and social support in the mental health and mental disorder. The results showed the efficacy of mental health Apps in improving health components and behavior change.
Mental health Apps have improved the accessibility to mental health services and psychological well- being. Therefore, more attention should be paid to design and development of mental health Apps. For this purposes, ethical considerations and information security are important factors that should be considered when designing and using mental health apps.