Social media interventions for mental health: A scoping review

Abstract

Background: Social media in healthcare has been widely used over the past few years with increasing popularity worldwide. Social media platforms can potentially act as a possible mental health service provider by improving communication, awareness and education. Objective: The aim of this scoping review is to describe the use of social media interventions for mental health and to provide an understanding of the current state of knowledge. Methods: The search platforms utilized for the scoping review were PubMed and IEEE. The inclusion criteria were as follows: research-based articles, primary means for mental health service is social media, and articles that specify mental disorders (depression, anxiety, etc). Results: After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria on 190 articles, 30 were included for the purpose of this review. Twelve studies originated from the USA while six studies were from the UK. While fourteen papers were on general mental health disorders, twelve papers focused on depression. The results generally showed that social media interventions for mental health had advantages over the conventional treatments. A lack of studies from developing countries, and fewer studies including the elderly population and the assumption of digital literacy are among the identified gaps. Conclusion: Social media has the potential to act as a service provider for users with mental health issues. However, the effectiveness of this method has not been accurately measured and more research is required for evaluating the effectiveness of using social media for treatment over conventional methods.