LAUSR

Mental disorders impact one in four people worldwide, yet access to care is challenging for those who suffer from them. Mental health apps offer the potential to overcome access bar­ riers for the nearly three billion people projected to own a smart­ phone by 2020. Although there are over 10,000 mental health apps commer­ cially available, there are few resources available to help end users (patients, clinicians and health care organizations) to eval­ uate the quality and suitability of these products. Thus, there is an urgent need for an agreement about appropriate standards, principles and practices in research and evaluation of these tools. We represent leaders in mHealth research, industry and health care systems from around the globe, and we seek here to promote consensus on implementing these standards and principles for the evaluation of mental health apps. At a mini­ mum, standards should include consideration of: a) data safety and privacy, b) effectiveness, c) user experience/adherence, d) data integration. Our consensus on the challenges and recom­ mendations in each of these areas is presented below.