Preferences toward digital and non-digital mental health treatment delivery formats: A survey of Indian college students

Abstract

Digital mental health treatments have the potential to expand access to services in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), but the uptake of interventions has been limited. Furthermore, the attitudes of those in LMICs toward intervention formats are rarely studied. In this study, Indian college students were asked to rate a variety of treatment delivery formats on three domains: a) perceived helpfulness, b) availability, and c) willingness to try. We found that 95% of individuals were willing to try one-on-one therapy with a professional, 56% were willing to try one-on-one therapy with a lay counselor, participants were less willing to try group interventions than one-on-one interventions, and <50% were willing to try digital self-help interventions. Additionally, there was a strong association between willingness to try and ratings of helpfulness (r=0.61). Ratings were not associated with gender, age, or depressive symptoms. Our findings suggest that one barrier limiting the uptake of digital interventions in LMICs is that individuals do not perceive them as helpful. Efforts to disseminate information about non-traditional intervention delivery formats and their benefits are warranted.

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“…While there are efforts to disseminate digital interventions (e.g., NIMH RFA-MH-20-510), digital interventions are not the only forms of low-intensity treatments that exist. Individuals may have equally strong (Wasil et al, 2020), or stronger preferences (De Jesús-Romero et al, 2021;Smith et al, 2017), for treatment modalities that are not digital (e.g., books).…”