The St. Louis counseling center Provident is expanding its digital mental illness prevention and treatment toolkit with recommendations through mHealth apps.

The new offering stems from Provident’s website called “Feeling Kinda Blue” that was launched two years ago and has seen a strong consumer interest, with membership growing from 745 to more than 4,650 members.

Now Provident launched no less than eight mental health apps that focus on a wide range of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, stress and posttraumatic stress disorder.

“Mobile sites and websites seems to be where we are going in the future,” Provident clinician Billie Hartgrove told St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “What I’m seeing is that social media is going to play a big part in how we address mental illness in the community and reaching out to people who might not have any other means of getting direct support.”

Hartgrove went on to add that enabling patients to get support from their smartphones is crucial. In fact, out of some 165,000 mHealth apps, about one third are related to mental health.

Smartphones can not only help patients when they need assistance, but also detect things like depression. At least one study has found that excessive smartphone use, measured by sensor data and geopresence technologies, may be the next big indicator of depression.