Digital Mental Health Interventions: Current Evidence and Future Directions

Abstract

Large language models, virtual reality, smartphone apps, and generative artificial intelligence are all part of the growing field of digital mental health, which is moving beyond traditional telehealth. Emerging solutions based on co-design, rigorous evaluation, and implementation science offer promising paths forward, even while industrial setbacks and methodological criticisms have brought attention to evidence gaps and difficulties in scaling these technologies.1 Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) have emerged as innovative tools to address growing mental health needs across diverse populations. These include mobile applications, telepsychiatry, web-based therapy programs, artificial intelligence–based tools, chatbots, and virtual reality therapy. This review summarizes current evidence on the effectiveness of DMHIs, explores their strengths and challenges, and highlights future directions for research and practice, with a special focus on implications for nursing and community mental health.