Cognitive engineering in mental health computing

Computer applications in the support of mental healthcare and rehabilitation are becoming more widely used. They include technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), electronic diaries, multimedia, brain computing and computer games. Research in this area is emerging, and focuses on a variety of issues such as clinical effectiveness of a computer-supported intervention, usability of a system, human values that are affected by a technological intervention, actual use, acceptance, and accessibility of these systems. To classify and to understand the objectives of the work presented in this special issue the mental health computing research model is presented. This descriptive model identified four research categories: (1) technology elements, (2) technology intervention, (3) clinical effect, and (4) field use. Each category has its own focus, methods and set of researchers.