What Are Prescription Digital Therapeutics (PDTs)?

Can your smartphone become part of your mental health treatment? Prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs) promise to do exactly that — but what are they, and do they actually work? In this episode, host Gabe Howard is joined by ADAA member experts John Torous, MD, MBI, a digital psychiatry expert, and Michelle A. Patriquin, PhD, ABPP, a clinical psychologist, to separate hype from reality. Together, they explain what PDTs are — and aren't — and how mental health apps fit into modern treatment. The conversation explores how apps can help bridge long wait times for therapy; reinforce skills learned in treatment; track mood, sleep, and behavior between appointments; and provide valuable insights that improve conversations with mental health clinicians. Listeners will learn: the difference between FDA-approved mental health apps and standard wellness apps why choosing the "best" mental health app is less important than finding one you'll actually use consistently how to avoid common misconceptions about digital mental health tools and make informed choices If you've ever opened an app store looking for mental health support, this episode will help you separate marketing from evidence so you can make smarter, safer, and more informed decisions about incorporating technology into your mental health care. This episode has been sponsored by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA). Our guest, Dr. Michelle Patriquin, is the John S. Dunn Distinguished Professor and Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, and serves as Assistant Dean of Digital Health & Innovation in the UTHealth Houston School of Behavioral Sciences. She is also Co-Director of Research for the John S. Dunn Behavioral Sciences Center, the largest academic inpatient psychiatric hospital in the United States. She is a board-certified clinical psychologist and researcher focused on digital mental health: bringing data-driven, tech-enabled mental health care into real-world clinical setting - especially intensive and inpatient mental healthcare - to improve safety, recovery, and access. Her work is widely published and is supported by state, federal, and foundation funding. Our guest, John Torous, MD, MBI, is director of the digital psychiatry division in the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a Harvard Medical School-affiliated teaching hospital, where he also serves as a staff psychiatrist and associate professor. He has a background in electrical engineering and computer sciences and received an undergraduate degree in the field from UC Berkeley before attending medical school at UC San Diego. He completed his psychiatry residency, fellowship in clinical informatics, and master's degree in biomedical informatics at Harvard. Dr. Torous is active in investigating the potential of mobile mental health and AI technologies for psychiatry, and his team supports mindapps.org as the largest database of mental health apps, mindApps.ai for benchmarking AI chatbots, mindLAMP technology platform for scalable digital phenotyping and interventions, and the Digital Navigator program to promote digital equity and access. Dr. Torous has published over 300 peer reviewed articles and 5 book chapters on the topic. He directs the Digital Psychiatry Clinic at BIDMC which seeks to improve access to and quality of mental health care through augmenting treatment with digital innovations. Dr. Torous serves as editor-in-chief for the journal JMIR Mental Health, web editor for JAMA Psychiatry, and a member of various American Psychiatric Association committees.