Study: artificial intelligence therapy reduced mental health symptoms

Two thousand Mexican women, whose mental health problems ranged from mild to severe, participated in the study. Half of the women got free access to the therapy app, the others served as controls.

The app is trained in cognitive behavioral therapy. The user uses it to monitor their moods and do various exercises. Artificial intelligence guides you through tasks and acts as a conversation partner.

The application use improved mental health during six months by 0.3 standard deviations.

The improvement is quite small, but according to the researchers, it is significant when you take into account how the treatment result can be achieved with light means and in a short time.

Using an app called Mindsurf also improved sleep, increased health-supportive behaviors and reduced absences from the workplace. In addition, it inspired me to apply for conventional psychotherapy.

Usually the use of digital mental health apps is fading quite quickly.

That was also the case with Mindsurf. Only 36 percent still used it actively at two months and less than ten percent at six months.

Although most of the women stopped using the app fairly soon, the treatment helped much longer, reports the professor of economics in his research article Manuela Angelucci and his group at the University of Texas. Their article has not yet been peer-reviewed.

The researchers think that women who have used the application quickly learn skills and practices that alleviate symptoms. So they no longer needed to continue using the app.

Similar ones results have been obtained from leaving other online therapies in between, says the psychology university lecturer Tom Rosenstrom from the University of Helsinki.

Rosenström has studied online therapies and shown with his colleagues that they work just as well as face-to-face psychotherapy.

“The high discontinuation rate of online treatments has been considered bad and thought that people don’t like them. But people use different digital services as much as they need. The treatment can be successful even if the service is not used for a long time,” says Rosenström.

According to Rosenström, the treatment effect of artificial intelligence therapy turned out to be quite good. However, in previous studies, self-administered therapy programs on a computer have been found to be even more effective. They have not had artificial intelligence.

Sen on the other hand, there is no evidence of the benefits of general artificial intelligence applications that are not tailored for therapy purposes in terms of health concerns, and the use may also involve risks.

According to many studies, different trends in psychotherapy help mental health disorders equally well.

It is believed that something common to the therapies explains the similar treatment effect and that it is the treatment relationship between the therapist and the patient, i.e. the therapeutic alliance.

However, neither the computer programs nor the artificial intelligence app examined in the new study are part of any therapeutic relationship, and yet they help.

Some according to Rosenström, researchers are already of the opinion that a therapeutic collaborative relationship does not necessarily have to be between two people. It can be, for example, the relationship between the patient and the service system.

However, human contact seems to bring its own addition to therapy. According to research, self-care programs are a little more effective if another person is involved, such as an online therapist.

“A person not only helps, but also creates a sense of responsibility for the patient to do something. When psychotherapy is in a way educating and practicing oneself, a sense of responsibility can also help.”

Therapy applications and online therapies will become necessary, because many people who need treatment will be left without it.

It has been estimated that there is minimum treatment for depression in the world less than a tenth of those in need. Even in prosperous countries like Finland, only about one in three receives treatment.