Background Digital mental health interventions have a great potential to alleviate mental illness and increase access to care. However, these technologies face significant challenges, especially in terms of user engagement and adoption. It has been suggested that this issue stems from a lack of user perspective in the development process; accordingly, several human-centered design approaches have been developed over the years to consider this important aspect. Yet, few human-centered design approaches to digital solutions exist in the field of mental health, and rarely are end users involved in their development. Objective The main objective of this literature review is to understand how human-centered design is considered in e-mental health intervention research. Methods An exploratory mapping review was conducted of mental health journals with the explicit scope of covering e-mental health technology. The human-centered design approaches reported and the core elements of design activity (ie, object, context, design process, and actors involved) were examined among the eligible studies. Results A total of 30 studies met the inclusion criteria, of which 22 mentioned using human-centered design approaches or specific design methods in the development of an e-mental health solution. Reported approaches were classified as participatory design (11/27, 41%), codesign (6/27, 22%), user-centered design (5/27, 19%), or a specific design method (5/27, 19%). Just over half (15/27, 56%) of the approaches mentioned were supported by references. End users were involved in each study to some extent but not necessarily in designing. About 27% (8/30) of all the included studies explicitly mentioned the presence of designers on their team. Conclusions Our results show that some attempts have indeed been made to integrate human-centered design approaches into digital mental health technology development. However, these attempts rely very little on designers and design research. Researchers from other domains and technology developers would be wise to learn the underpinnings of human-centered design methods before selecting one over another. Inviting designers for assistance when implementing a particular approach would also be beneficial. To further motivate interest in and use of human-centered design principles in the world of e-mental health, we make nine suggestions for better reporting of human-centered design approaches in future research.

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BACKGROUND Non-compliance to treatment is known to be critical in mental healthcare services. Yet, improving patient compliance with mental health issues remains an issue. Today, mental health apps are becoming increasingly used by individuals living with mental health disorders. These apps are supposed to facilitate patient empowerment, which would lead to greater patient trust in the health care provider and patient compliance. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate the impact of patient empowerment on trust in the health care provider and patient compliance in the context of mental health apps. METHODS A total of 364 responses were collected from Canadian adult users of mental health apps diagnosed with mental health disorders. The partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling was employed to test the reliability and validity of the measurement model. The path coefficients of the structural model were also calculated to test our hypotheses. RESULTS The results showed that patient empowerment gained through mental health apps positively influenced patient trust in the health care provider (β=.321, P<.001). Patient trust in the health care provider also had a positive effect on patient compliance (β=.728, P<.001). The relationship between empowerment and patient compliance was not significant (β=.062, P=.21). Interestingly, the data highlights that the effect of patient empowerment on patient compliance was fully mediated by trust in the health care provider (β=.233, P<.001). Additionally, the results show that patient empowerment gained on the mental health app involves two dimensions: a process and an outcome. CONCLUSIONS This study highlights that empowerment gains through mental health apps for an individual living with mental health disorders leads to patient trust in the health care provider. Patient empowerment is found to impact patient compliance, but only through the full mediating effect of patient trust in the health care provider, indicating that patient trust is a critical variable to enhance patient compliance. Overall, our results confirm that health care providers should encourage the use of mental health apps to favor patient empowerment.