Using Speech Agents for Mood Logging within Blended Mental Healthcare: Mental Healthcare Practitioners' Perspectives

Mood logging, where people track mood-related data, is commonly used to support mental healthcare. Speech agents could prove beneficial in supporting mood logging for clients. Yet we know little about how Mental Healthcare Practitioners (MHPs) view speech as a tool to support current care practices. Through a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 15 MHPs, we show that MHPs see opportunities in the convenience, and the data richness that speech agents could afford. However, MHPs also saw this richness as noisy, with using speech potentially diminishing a client's focus on mood logging as an activity. MHPs were wary of overusing AI-based tools, expressing concerns around data ownership, access and privacy. We discuss the role of speech agents within blended care, outlining key considerations when using speech for mood logging in a blended mental healthcare context.