Blog post: Artificial Intelligence (AI) & mental health
By- Ioanna Kougianou
Good mental health is an essential state for one’s wellbeing. However, numbers from the World Health Organization show that 970 million people across the globe experience some mental health disorder. This puts mental health disorders among the leading causes of global health related burden [1]
Even though different approaches to prevent & treat are available, the majority of individuals who are living with a mental health condition do not have access to effective care [1]. Thus, it is important to use varied and innovative approaches that could improve this field.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), which can be seen as the simulation of human intelligence by machines, has become increasingly popular in the past few years, and seems highly promising for revolutionising many fields. So, how can we use it to improve mental health care?
Firstly, we need to consider the importance of early detection. When we can detect a condition in an individual at an early stage (maybe even before symptoms appear!), we can stop its development with appropriate interventions. Here, AI could be used to screen people and identify those who would be “at risk” of developing that condition [2]. In addition, AI could be used to provide more personalised treatment based on the individual profile [2]
Moreover, AI has a major advantage in analysing large-scale datasets. This could be used by researchers to better understand questions like: 'Is a medication effective for treating a particular mental health disorder? Is a new medication being tested better over another existing one? How does a disorder progress?’ but not limited to these [2].
However, even though AI seems to be a very strong tool for mental health care (and overall health care) it is important to highlight that ethical issues need to be considered [2]. Some examples include, clinicians not being familiar and confident in data management (and thus in any potential decisions made by AI), and lack of established guidelines of AI within the healthcare setting [2].
Author Bio:
Ioanna Kougianou (she/her) is a first year PhD candidate exploring the effectiveness of certain medications on delaying or averting non-affective psychosis in individuals who have attended child and mental health services.
References:
- WHO (World Health Organization), Mental disorders, (2022)
- Graham, S., Depp, C., Lee, E. E., Nebeker, C., Tu, X., Kim, H. C., & Jeste, D. V. (2019). Artificial Intelligence for Mental Health and Mental Illnesses: an Overview. Current psychiatry reports, 21(11), 116.
Image Credit: geralt on Pixabay