Patient Smartphone Ownership and Interest in Mobile Apps to Monitor Symptoms of Mental Health Conditions: A Survey in Four Geographically Distinct Psychiatric Clinics

Background Despite growing interest in mobile mental health and utilization of smartphone technology to monitor psychiatric symptoms, there remains a lack of knowledge both regarding patient ownership of smartphones and their interest in using such to monitor their mental health. Objective To provide data on psychiatric outpatients’ prevalence of smartphone ownership and interest in using their smartphones to run applications to monitor their mental health. Methods We surveyed 320 psychiatric outpatients from four clinics around the United States in order to capture a geographically and socioeconomically diverse patient population. These comprised a state clinic in Massachusetts (n=108), a county clinic in California (n=56), a hybrid public and private clinic in Louisiana (n=50), and a private/university clinic in Wisconsin (n=106). Results Smartphone ownership and interest in utilizing such to monitor mental health varied by both clinic type and age with overall ownership of 62.5% (200/320), which is slightly higher than the average United States’ rate of ownership of 58% in January 2014. Overall patient interest in utilizing smartphones to monitor symptoms was 70.6% (226/320). Conclusions These results suggest that psychiatric outpatients are interested in using their smartphones to monitor their mental health and own the smartphones capable of running mental healthcare related mobile applications.

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Telepsychiatry Use in Rural Areas in the United States

Journal of Information Technology Research ◽

10.4018/jitr.2020100101 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Alberto Coustasse ◽

Morgan Ruley ◽

Tonnie C. Mike ◽

Briana M. Washington ◽

Anna Robinson

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

United States ◽

Quality Of Care ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Care Delivery ◽

Mental Healthcare ◽

Healthcare Services ◽

The United States ◽

Access And Quality

Rural areas have experienced a higher than average shortage of healthcare professionals. Numerous challenges have limited access to mental health services. Some of these barriers have included transportation, number of providers, poverty, and lack of insurance. Recently, the utilization of telepsychiatry has increased in rural areas. The purpose of this review was to identify and coalesce the benefits of telepsychiatry for adults living in rural communities in the United States to determine if telepsychiatry has improved access and quality of care. The methodology for this study was a literature review that followed a systematic approach. References and sources were written in English and were taken from studies in the United States between 2004 and 2018 to keep this review current. Fifty-nine references were selected from five databases. It was found that several studies supported that telepsychiatry has improved access and quality of care available in rural environments. At the same time, telepsychiatry in mental healthcare has not been utilized as it should in rural adult populations due to lack of access, an overall shortage of providers, and poor distribution of psychiatrists. There are numerous benefits to implementing telepsychiatry in rural areas. While there are still barriers that prevent widespread utilization, telepsychiatry can improve mental health outcomes by linking rural patients to high-quality mental healthcare services that follow evidence-based care and best practices. Telepsychiatry utilization in rural areas in the United States has demonstrated to have a significant ability to transform mental health care delivery and clinician productivity. As technology continues to advance access, telepsychiatry will also advance, making access more readily available.

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Kaleidoscope

The British Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1192/bjp.208.3.305 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 208 (3) ◽

pp. 305-306

Author(s):

Derek K. Tracy ◽

Dan W. Joyce ◽

Sukhwinder S. Shergill

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

United States ◽

England Journal ◽

New England ◽

Mentally Ill ◽

Psychological Impact ◽

Mental Healthcare ◽

The United States ◽

Legislative Change ◽

Impossible Task

Friedman's statement that ‘most people who are violent are not mentally ill, and most people who are mentally ill are not violent’ remains apposite, but recent US gun killings inevitably reawaken the debate. In a moving editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, Malina and colleagues compellingly compare gun lobbyists to a cancer growing in the mutated cells of the psychological and sociological make-up of the United States. What is the contribution of mental health to this problem? Estimates suggest it might have impacted the trajectory of 3–5% of the approximately 33 000 US gun deaths in 2013. Sadly, one imagines that psychiatry had a far bigger role in terms of the subsequent psychological impact on their relatives, witnesses of the violence, and the further 84 000 who survived such assaults that year. Against the backdrop of halting convulsions towards legislative change, the authors reason that mental healthcare cannot be held responsible for what they label the impossible task of identifying anyone who might conceivably start shooting others.

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1326. Comorbid Mental Health Disorders Are a Key But Manageable Barrier to Suppression of HIV Viral Load

Open Forum Infectious Diseases ◽

10.1093/ofid/ofz360.1190 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (Supplement_2) ◽

pp. S479-S480

Author(s):

Tiffany Stivers ◽

J Zachary Porterfield ◽

Jana Collins ◽

Justin Yang ◽

Robert Parrish ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

United States ◽

Viral Suppression ◽

Barriers To Care ◽

Mental Healthcare ◽

The United States ◽

Hiv Care ◽

Outreach Program ◽

Improvement Project ◽

Care Clinic

Abstract Background Kentucky sits at the epicenter of the HIV epidemic in the United States and harbors 54 of the top 220 HIV/HCV outbreak vulnerable counties in the United States; 44 of which are served by the Bluegrass Care Clinic at the University of Kentucky. Understanding the barriers to care at the frontlines of the epidemic is of critical importance in the work toward the eventual elimination of HIV in the United States and elsewhere. Methods The Bluegrass Care Clinic has achieved viral suppression in 90% of the HIV-positive patients enrolled in care. Given the catchment area served by this clinic, however, the unsuppressed 10% of patients likely represent the tip of an iceberg of undiagnosed patients or those lost to care from remote and at-risk communities. We developed a quality improvement project to specifically review the barriers to achieving viral suppression in this subset of patients in our clinic. Additionally, we developed an outreach algorithm for patients identified as having comorbid mental health issues to increase engagement in both HIV and mental healthcare. Results We found that nearly 45% of virally unsuppressed patients in our clinic had comorbid mental health disease and 30% had substance use disorders. Female sex was associated with being unsuppressed (P = 0.003); however, age and race were not predictive. Of the patients identified as having mental health barriers to care, 58% were able to be contacted using our outreach algorithm and 58% of these patients accepted referral into a mental health service. In this first 12 months of this program 26% of these patients achieved viral suppression and an additional 18% had substantial decreases in their viral loads. Conclusion This preliminary report highlights the importance of identifying and addressing barriers to care. Comorbid mental disorders have consistently been associated with greater difficulties in achieving viral suppression. We present an effective and successful program for engaging patients in mental healthcare using an interdisciplinary outreach program that is designed to be generalizable. These data set the stage for reaching the missing subset of patients who are not currently engaged in HIV care, a critical next step for universal test and treat and 90/90/90 strategies. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.

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