Telemental Health

2020 ◽  
pp. 313-323
Author(s):  
Pietro J. Lynn
Keyword(s):  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Telemental Health ◽  
Video Communications ◽  
Malpractice Claims ◽  
Communications Technologies ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Personal Jurisdiction ◽  
Remote Communications ◽  
Health Clinician

The Internet and advances in technology are substantially increasing our ability to communicate. Those remote audio and video communications technologies offer mental healthcare professionals with the opportunity to clinically engage with patients outside of the traditional office setting. However, with those opportunities come new challenges. Clinicians interested in utilizing remote communications technology to treat patients, telemental health, should carefully consider new legal exposures inherent in treating patients outside the office before incorporating telemental health into their practices. Telemental health raises new issues for mental healthcare professionals in the context of malpractice claims, personal jurisdiction, informed consent, licensing, and compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This chapter identifies the new and sometimes subtle problematic issues associated with telemental health, exploring the nature of the risks to the telemental health clinician and discussing a practical approach to minimizing the exposures.

scholarly journals Can Chatbots Help Support a Person’s Mental Health? Perceptions and Views from Mental Healthcare Professionals and Experts

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Colm Sweeney ◽  
Courtney Potts ◽  
Edel Ennis ◽  
Raymond Bond ◽  
Maurice D. Mulvenna ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
User Interfaces ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Health Perceptions ◽  
Human Emotion ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Perceived Importance

The objective of this study was to understand the attitudes of professionals who work in mental health regarding the use of conversational user interfaces, or chatbots, to support people’s mental health and wellbeing. This study involves an online survey to measure the awareness and attitudes of mental healthcare professionals and experts. The findings from this survey show that more than half of the participants in the survey agreed that there are benefits associated with mental healthcare chatbots (65%, p < 0.01). The perceived importance of chatbots was also relatively high (74%, p < 0.01), with more than three-quarters (79%, p < 0.01) of respondents agreeing that mental healthcare chatbots could help their clients better manage their own health, yet chatbots are overwhelmingly perceived as not adequately understanding or displaying human emotion (86%, p < 0.01). Even though the level of personal experience with chatbots among professionals and experts in mental health has been quite low, this study shows that where they have been used, the experience has been mostly satisfactory. This study has found that as years of experience increased, there was a corresponding increase in the belief that healthcare chatbots could help clients better manage their own mental health.

scholarly journals Vignette research on messy and confusing problems in primary mental healthcare

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. H. (Dineke) Smit ◽  
J. J. L. (Jan) Derksen
Keyword(s):  
Primary Care ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Complex Dynamic ◽  
Negative Feedback Loops ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
The Family ◽  
Mixed Feelings ◽  
Working Together

The average primary care psychologist feels an ever-widening gap between objective, measurable reality as described and the complex and dynamic reality they experience. To obtain a better understanding of this complex dynamic reality, we conducted an exploratory mixed-method study of primary care psychologists. We asked our participants to write vignettes about messy and confusing problems in the complex context of mental healthcare. We then examined the data in portions, exposed the patterns in the data, and subsequently analysed all in conjunction. The 113 vignettes showed experiences of psychologists dealing not only with the patient, but also with the family of the patient and/or employers, working together with other healthcare professionals, struggling with dilemmas and having mixed feelings. However, using the Cynafin Framework, 36% of the vignettes were still rated as simple. Was it because those vignettes contained fewer words (p = .006)? Or because it is difficult to grasp complexity when cause and effect are intertwined with emotions, norms and values? In the discussion, we suggest examining a complex dynamic system in terms of both the consistency of its various elements and the dynamics of the system. We also discuss how to optimize the system’s adaptive self-organizing ability and how to challenge ourselves to invent negative feedback loops that can keep the complex system in equilibrium.

scholarly journals Depressive Symptoms, Help-Seeking, and Barriers to Mental Healthcare Among Healthcare Professionals in Lithuania

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Daniel Rogoža ◽  
Robertas Strumila ◽  
Eglė Klivickaitė ◽  
Edgaras Diržius ◽  
Neringa Čėnaitė
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Poor Mental Health ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Patient Health

Background: Previous research suggests that healthcare professionals (HCPs) experience high levels of work-related psychological distress, including depressive symptoms. Due to the stigma of mental health problems and other barriers, HCPs are likely to be hesitant to seek appropriate mental healthcare. We aimed to explore these phenomena among HCPs in Lithuania.Methods: A web survey inquiring about depressive symptoms, help-seeking, and barriers to mental healthcare was conducted. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). 601 complete questionnaires were included in the analyses. The barriers to help-seeking were identified using the inductive content analysis approach. Descriptive, non-parametric, and robust statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software.Results: Most of the respondents have reported depression-like symptoms over the lifetime, although only about a third of them sought professional help. Of those, roughly half preferred a private specialist. The stigma and neglect of mental health problems were the most common barriers to help-seeking. Around half of the HCPs believed that seeking mental healthcare can imperil their occupational license. About a quarter of the HCPs screened positive for clinically relevant depressive symptoms. Statistically significant differences in the PHQ-9 score were found between categories of healthcare specialty, marital status, religious beliefs, workplace, and years of work as a HCP. Fewer years of work and younger age were associated with the higher PHQ-9 score.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that HCPs in Lithuania may be inclined not to seek appropriate mental healthcare and experience poor mental health, although stronger evidence is needed to verify these findings. 

Telemental Health in Africa

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sinclair Wynchank ◽  
Dora Wynchank
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Severe Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Healthcare Personnel ◽  
Telemental Health ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Broadcast Media ◽  
Equipment Costs

Although telemental health (TMH) in Africa shares much with TMH in well-resourced nations, significant differences exist. These mainly result from relatively small funds available for all forms of healthcare, inadequate infrastructure, lack of mental healthcare personnel, and cross-cultural difficulties. The majority of individuals with severe mental illness receive no treatment in most African countries. This lack has been alleviated in part by some “North–South” and “South–South” TMH programs, in addition to other locally initiated programs. African TMH has emphasized provision of a wide variety of TMH—education, managing psychotrauma in regions of violent upheavals, and the provision of other TMH services. Novel African telecommunications techniques and means of providing TMH, for example using broadcast media and diasporic mental healthcare personnel, are outlined. So, future African TMH will surely grow because of decreasing equipment costs, but principally because of proven effectiveness and the power of such interventions.

scholarly journals The Role of Perceived Usefulness and Attitude on Electronic Health Record Acceptance

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 108-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randike Gajanayake ◽  
Tony Sahama ◽  
Renato Iannella
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Health Records ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Polynomial Regression ◽  
Perceived Usefulness ◽  
Intention To Use ◽  
Information And Communications Technologies ◽  
Health Records ◽  
Communications Technologies ◽  
Electronic Health

Information and communications technologies are a significant component of the healthcare domain, and electronic health records play a major role in it. Therefore, it is important that they are accepted en masse by healthcare professionals. How healthcare professionals perceive the usefulness of electronic health records and their attitudes towards them have been shown to have significant effects on the overall acceptance in many healthcare systems around the world. This paper investigates the role of perceived usefulness and attitude on the intention to use electronic health records by future healthcare professionals using polynomial regression with response surface analysis. Results show that the relationships between these variables are more complex than predicted in prior research. The paper concludes that the properties of the above determinants must be further investigated to clearly understand: (i) their role in predicting the intention to use electronic health records; and (ii) in designing systems that are better adopted by healthcare professionals of the future.

scholarly journals Communication patterns in the doctor–patient relationship: evaluating determinants associated with low paternalism in Mexico.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Lazcano-Ponce ◽  
Angelica Angeles-Llerenas ◽  
Rocío Rodríguez-Valentín ◽  
Luis Salvador-Carulla ◽  
Rosalinda Domínguez-Esponda ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Communication Patterns ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Patient Relationship ◽  
Doctor Patient Relationship ◽  
Open Communication ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Explicit Communication

Abstract Background: Paternalism/overprotection limits communication between healthcare professionals and patients and does not promote shared therapeutic decision-making. In the global north, communication patterns have been regulated to promote autonomy, whereas in the global south, they reflect the physician’s personal choices. The goal of this work was contribute to knowledge of the communication patterns used in clinical practice in Mexico and to identify the determinants that favour a doctor-patient relationship characterized by low paternalism/autonomism. Methods: A self-report study of communication patterns within a sample of 761 mental healthcare professionals in Central and Western Mexico was conducted. Multiple ordinal logistic regression models were performed to analyse paternalism and associated factors. Results: A high prevalence (68.7% [95% CI 60.0-70.5]) of paternalism was observed among mental healthcare professionals in Mexico. The main determinants of low paternalism/autonomism were medical specialty (OR 1.67 [95% CI 1.16-2.40]) and gender, with female physicians more likely to explicitly share diagnoses and therapeutic strategies with patients and their families (OR 1.57 [95% CI 1.11-2.22]). A pattern of highly explicit communication was strongly associated with low paternalism/autonomism (OR 12.13 [95% CI 7.71-19.05]). Finally, a modifying effect of age strata on the association between communication pattern or specialty and low paternalism/autonomism was observed. Conclusions: Among mental healthcare professionals in Mexico, an elevated paternalism prevailed. Gender, specialty, and a pattern of open communication were closely associated with low paternalism/autonomism. Strengthening the competencies of health professionals and promoting explicit communication could contribute to the transition towards more autonomist communication in clinical practice in Mexico. The ethical implications will need to be resolved in the near future.

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