Towards Digital Zen: A Systematic Review of Emerging Digital Interventions for Mental Wellness

As emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) extend beyond research and development centers, their application in sensitive domains such as mental health is on the rise. In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the development of digital mental health interventions. However, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding regarding the current state of these interventions, especially with respect to the technologies employed, design practices utilized, and evaluation methods applied. To address this knowledge gap, we followed PRISMA 2020 statement guidelines to identify the technologies, design practices, and usability issues discussed in scientific publications pertaining to the development of interactive systems for mental wellness. Out of 500 articles screened, this work analyzed total of 42. The findings highlight characteristics of the studies, technologies employed, intervention focus, design and evaluation methodologies, and contributions to knowledge in this domain. The review underscores the need for understanding and accommodating the diverse needs in designing digital mental wellness interventions. Based on these findings, we propose the development of a crowd-sourced persona repository as a promising direction for future research. It would enable designers to create more tailored and inclusive mental wellness technologies, thereby enhancing their effectiveness and reach.