Brief digital mental health interventions for adults with emerging symptoms: part II. User experience outcomes based on a systematic review

Purpose Brief digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) provide timely and accessible support, diminishing existing treatment access gaps. This paper aims to synthesize the user experience (UX) of adults (≥25 years) engaging with brief DMHIs (≤3 h), a critical component to ensure intervention uptake. Design/methodology/approach This systematic review examined the UX of fully or partially guided brief DMHIs for adults, including their perceived usefulness, usability, findability, credibility, desirability, accessibility and value. Published and unpublished literature searches revealed 13,963 records. Only 14 of these reported on UX outcomes and were included in the study. Findings DMHIs demonstrated effectiveness in delivering outcomes that users find useful, usable, valuable, credible and accessible. No outcomes were found for the domains concerning findability or desirability. DMHI elements that positively influence multiple UX outcomes included multimedia, interactivity (i.e. value, usable) and flexible access (i.e. useful, usable). Elements perceived as valuable included personalization, skilled and empathetic providers/facilitators, skill acquisition exercises and downloadable/printed resources. Useful elements included modularized interventions and phone-based support. Privacy and confidentiality contributed to credibility. Mixed UX outcomes were observed for videoconference-delivered interventions and the optimal duration of the intervention. No DMHI elements were associated with poor UX outcomes. Originality/value Findings underscore the importance of considering UX alongside socioemotional outcomes in evaluating DMHI effectiveness. Recommendations are offered for improving UX psychometric instrumentation and diversity inclusion in future research and for designing and implementing user-centered DMHIs in practice.