Mental health apps are huge in Australia, but we don't have a way of knowing if they're safe

Clinical psychologist Jamie Marshall agrees there are questions over the effectiveness of some mental health apps.

Dr Marshall says testing for effectiveness is possible — but it's also expensive, something that could be dissuading app creators. "If someone develops an app, there's a financial imperative to get it onto the app store as quick as possible," he says.For smaller companies and start-ups, the cost of research itself could be another limitation, Dr Marshall says.Dr Marshall says that while there are quite a few existing reviews, with more coming out all the time, they're often conducted by those who developed the apps themselves.

"Another way to think about this, for example, is if a brand new drug was developed by a drug company and they said, 'Look, we've done the research, and this is the only research that's been done'.

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