Tackle the Stigma of Mental Health Through Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be utilized to predict depression and thereby overcome mental health stigma as per a study at the University of Tsukuba, published in BMJ Open.

The machine learning technology helps in predicting the signs of depression - psychological distress among individuals. Depression is a serious mental health disorder that is rapidly increasing in its prevalence.

‘Artificial intelligence can be utilized to predict depression with high accuracy and thereby overcome mental health stigma. This may help deliver earlier interventions to treat depression and psychological distress and thereby reduce the burden of mental illness from society.’

Several questionnaires tool may not yield the true subjective mood of depressed individuals due to the lingering social stigma regarding mental health. This mandates the requirement for effective screening tools to counteract depression.

"We wanted to see if the AI system could detect psychological distress in a large population from sociodemographic, lifestyle, and sleep factors, without data about subjective states, such as mood," says the lead author of the study Professor Shotaro Doki.

The AI tool for Depression

The study team conducted an online survey about sociodemographic, lifestyle, and sleep factors to 7251 participants - a group of researchers and office workers to investigate the effectiveness of the AI model in predicting psychological distress. The AI data were further verified by a team of 6 psychiatrists.

"The results were surprising. We found that even without data about mood, the AI model and the team of psychiatrists produced similar predictions regarding moderate psychological distress. This effectively avoids the issue of social stigma concerning mental health in the workplace, and eliminates the risk of inappropriate responses to questions asking about respondents' mood," says Professor Doki.

The present study thereby highlighted the high accuracy of the AI model in predicting even the severe psychological distress among individuals. This may help deliver earlier interventions to treat depression and psychological distress and thereby reduce the burden of mental illness from society.

Source: Medindia