JMIR Mental Health

Internet interventions, technologies, and digital innovations for mental health and behavior change.

JMIR Mental Health is the official journal of the Society of Digital Psychiatry

Editor-in-Chief:

John Torous, MD, MBI, Harvard Medical School, USA


Impact Factor 4.8 CiteScore 10.2

JMIR Mental Health (JMH, ISSN 2368-7959(Journal Impact Factor™ 4.8, (Journal Citation Reports™ from Clarivate, 2024)) is a premier, open-access, peer-reviewed journal with a unique focus on digital health and Internet/mobile interventions, technologies, and electronic innovations (software and hardware) for mental health, addictions, online counseling, and behavior change. The journal publishes research on system descriptions, theoretical frameworks, review papers, viewpoint/vision papers, and rigorous evaluations that advance evidence-based care, improve accessibility, and enhance the effectiveness of digital mental health solutions. It also explores innovations in digital psychiatry, e-mental health, and clinical informatics in psychiatry and psychology, with an emphasis on improving patient outcomes and expanding access to care.

The journal is indexed in PubMed Central and PubMed, MEDLINEScopus, Sherpa/Romeo, DOAJ, EBSCO/EBSCO Essentials, SCIE, PsycINFO and CABI.

In 2024, JMIR Mental Health received a Journal Impact Factor™ of 4.8 (5-Year Journal Impact Factor™: 5.1, ranked Q1 #39/276 journals in the category Psychiatry) (Source: Clarivate Journal Citation Reports™, 2024).

JMIR Mental Health received a Scopus CiteScore of 10.2 (2024), placing it in the 93rd percentile (#35 of 580) as a Q1 journal in the field of Psychiatry and Mental Health.

Recent Articles

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Reviews in Digital Mental Health

Given the increasing prevalence of mental health problems among adolescents, early intervention and appropriate management are needed to decrease mortality and morbidity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) 's potential contributions, although significant in the field of medicine, have not been adequately studied in the context of adolescents’ mental health.

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Depression and Mood Disorders; Suicide Prevention

Over 80% of trials worldwide fail to complete patient recruitment within the initially planned time frame. Over the past decade, the use of social media for recruitment in medical research has become increasingly popular. While Google and Facebook are well established, newer social media channels such as Instagram and TikTok garner less research attention as recruitment tools. Although some studies have investigated the advantages and disadvantages of using social media for recruitment, a considerable gap still exists in understanding the precise mechanisms and factors that make different social media platforms most effective and cost-efficient for patient recruitment in mental health studies.

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Users' and Patients' Needs for Mental Health Services

Increasing patient satisfaction with telemental health services is crucial for promoting widespread implementation and ensuring consistent utilization rates in the future, where the services could be a beneficial addition to routine mental healthcare. Nevertheless, knowledge regarding determinants of patient satisfaction with telemental health services is very limited.

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Depression and Mood Disorders; Suicide Prevention

Strong evidence suggests physical activity (PA) can ameliorate postpartum depression (PPD) symptoms; however, many postpartum individuals do not meet PA guidelines. Electronic health (eHealth) interventions are a promising approach to address common barriers to PA during postpartum.

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Depression and Mood Disorders; Suicide Prevention

Mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression are common among individuals of child-bearing age. Such disorders can affect pregnancy and postpartum well-being. This study aims to study the impact of prenatal mental health on the pregnancy journey, and highlights the utility of mobile health technologies like PowerMom for symptom tracking and screening.

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Innovations in Mental Health Systems

Consumers are increasingly using large language model–based chatbots to seek mental health advice or intervention due to ease of access and limited availability of mental health professionals. However, their suitability and safety for mental health applications remain underexplored, particularly in comparison to professional therapeutic practices.

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Reviews in Digital Mental Health

The global shortage of mental health professionals, exacerbated by increasing mental health needs post-COVID-19, has stimulated growing interest in leveraging large language models (LLMs) to address these challenges.

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Anxiety and Stress Disorders

Shame and stigma often prevent individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) from seeking and attending costly and time-intensive psychotherapies, highlighting the importance of brief, low-cost, and scalable treatments. Creating prescriptive outcome prediction models is thus crucial for identifying which clients with SAD might gain the most from a unique scalable treatment option. Nevertheless, widely used classical regression methods might not optimally capture complex nonlinear associations and interactions.

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Substance Abuse

Integrated digital interventions for the treatment of comorbid depression and substance use disorder have been developed, and evidence of their effectiveness is mixed.

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Intentional Self-Harm

Background: People with past suicidal thoughts and behavior (STB) are often excluded from digital mental health intervention (DMHI) treatment trials. This may perpetuate barriers to care and reduce treatment generalizability, especially in populations with elevated rates of STB, like body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). We conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT, N = 80) of a smartphone-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for BDD that allowed for most forms of past STB except for past-month active suicidal ideation.

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Reviews in Digital Mental Health

The effects of traditional health-promoting and preventive interventions in mental health and mental health literacy are often attenuated by low adherence and user engagement. Gamified approaches such as serious games (SGs) may be useful to reach and engage youth for mental health prevention and promotion.

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Depression and Mood Disorders; Suicide Prevention

Numerous mental health applications (MHealth apps) purport to alleviate depressive symptoms. Strong evidence suggests that brief cognitive behavioral therapy (bCBT)-based MHealth apps can decrease depressive symptoms, yet there is limited research elucidating the specific features that may augment its therapeutic benefits. One potential design feature that may influence effectiveness and user experience is the inclusion of virtual agents that can mimic realistic, human face-to-face interactions.

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Preprints Open for Peer-Review

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