Part of my job is analyzing quality metrics surrounding depression. Everyone is failing, and uncontrolled depression is an unseen pandemic. We are in rapid innovation phase.
Also, are you the right person to complain to about the quality of my depression? It is quite poor and I would like get a refund.
An example of a depression protocol is depression remission:
(1) Was an index test performed in prior year to identify depression (2) Was a followup performed this year (3) Does the followup test indicate depression has gone into remission.
There are various other measures for depression.
I really like the idea of incorporating a standard depression symptoms test into the app and then taking another test at a later stage to see the longer term change. It still won't be conclusive proof, but it would help.
The problem is those things are hard. And downloading an app on your phone is easy.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) it is still true that you reap what you sow. I'm afraid all this "innovation" around mental health is just sowing the seeds for more people spending more time sitting inside, alone, not moving, staring at screens, consuming.
Depression is a self sustaining problem. The depression prevents you from seeking social activities, taking care of your body and mind and being creative, This obviously makes the depression worse. Paradoxically, forcing yourself to do any of these activities makes the depression worse as well due to the internal resistance to get better.
We definitely do need innovation. We need something that works, is scalable, doesn't cost $1k per month in therapy fees and doesn't have any adverse side effects.
My current best guess about the future in this space is a combination of microdosing and supportive apps like mine.