Our App Review Process

At Mentalica, our mission is to gather and review mental health solutions from an evidence base perspective. In this post we will walk our readers through our review process - which is informed by scientifically recommended guidelines such as those of the American Psychiatric Association. 

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To ensure comprehensive evaluations, we involve two key people in our review process: a qualified mental health professional and a lay user or lived experience expert. This combination provides both a professional perspective and real-world usability insights.

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By following our review process, we ensure our assessments are rigorous and user-centric. Our goal is to help you make informed decisions about mental health tech you decide to use to support your wellbeing.

Over the past year, we've streamlined our review process into a more efficient and accessible format. Here’s how and why we evaluate apps.

When we review mental health solutions, we do so according to the following categories:

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1. Basic Information

   • App Overview: We start by gathering fundamental details about the app. This includes its key features, both free and premium, the cost in the UK, availability on platforms (Android, iOS), and the languages it supports.

   • Modality Categorisation: Instead of categorising apps by specific mental health concerns, we group them by their primary function, such as AI, journalling, or meditation. This approach helps prevent self-diagnosis and supports users who may not have a formal diagnosis, promoting a broader understanding of the app’s functionalities.

2. Credibility

   • Transparency: We look into the background of the company behind each solution to understand its credibility. This involves checking when the company was founded, who the team members are, where they operate, and the skills they bring - specifically: whether there are mental health professionals involved in developing content for the solution. Transparency in these areas is crucial.

   • Rating:

     • High: We rate an app as highly credible if it’s fully transparent and involves mental health professionals in developing its content.

     • Medium: If the app covers at least one aspect of transparency, it gets a medium rating.

     • Weak: An app is rated weak if there’s a lack of information or no involvement of mental health professionals.

3. Safety

   • Crisis Management: We evaluate how the app handles reports of suicidal ideation or behaviour. This is a critical aspect of our review process.

   • Outsourcing: We check if crisis management is outsourced to third-party services, and assess their effectiveness and the qualifications of the professionals involved.

   • In-App Handling: If crisis management is handled within the app, we examine these procedures closely.

4. Safety and Privacy

   • Privacy: We review the app’s privacy policy, whether there is any information sharing with 3rd parties, with particular focus on data monetisation, such as sharing data for marketing purposes. We check whether there is a registration requirement with identifiable details or whether the app could be used anonymously. 

   • Controversies: We investigate online controversies related to privacy issues, such as data leaks.

   • Rating: Apps are rated from weak to strong based on the robustness of their privacy measures.

     • High: High privacy score indicates no major public issues with the app in the past 5 years, a strong privacy policy with no unnecessary data sharing. Users could use the app anonymously and no or minimal registration is required.

     • Medium: Only one of the following applies: 1) one major issue in the past 5 years; 2) user information is shared for marketing purposes; 3) weak privacy policy; 4) registration requirement with identifiable details; 5) app tracks user activity on their phone

     • Low: More than one of the following applies: 1) a major issue in the past 5 years; 2) user information is shared for marketing purposes; 3) weak privacy policy; 4) registration requirement with identifiable details; 5) app tracks user activity on their phone

5. Effectiveness

   • Scientific Evidence: We assess the effectiveness of the app by reviewing the scientific evidence supporting its claims. Note that we do not check user experience here - we are interested in seeing scientific testing.

   • Quality of Evidence:

     • High: High-quality evidence includes Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) or meta-analyses.

     • Medium: Medium-quality evidence might be observational studies or cohort studies.

     • Low: Anecdotal evidence, user experience ratings, and no scientific evidence rate as low.

6. User Experience

Qualitative Feedback: Finally, both the mental health professional (“Mentalica therapist’s thoughts”) and the lay user (“Mentalica user experience”) provide qualitative feedback based on their experience with the app. This feedback offers valuable insights into the app’s usability and practical benefits.