Support from the Internet for Individuals with Mental Disorders: Advantages and Disadvantages of e-Mental Health Service Delivery

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Mental disorders are common in almost all industrialized countries and many emerging economies. While several trials have shown that effective treatments exist for mental disorders, such as pharmacotherapy, psychological interventions, and self-help programs, the treatment gap in mental health care remains pervasive. Unrestricted access to adequate medical care for people with mental disorders will be one of the pressing public mental health tasks in the near future. In addition, scarcity of financial resources across the public mental health sector is a powerful argument for investigating innovative alternatives of delivering mental health care. Thus, one challenge that arises in modern mental health care is the development of innovative treatment concepts. One possibility for improving mental health care services is to deliver them via the Internet. Online-based mental health services have the potential to address the unmet need for mental health care.

Original languageEnglish
Article number65
JournalFrontiers in Public Health
Volume2
Issue numberJUN
Number of pages6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11.06.2014

Bibliographical note

Nowadays, people use the Internet to get information about symptoms or treatment programs and health care services, and they compare treatment options. For example, the NHS website “NHS Choices”1 is one of the most popular health websites in the UK. The website mentalhealthminute.com, funded by a grant from the Canadian Council on Learning and sponsored in part by the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health, is responsible for providing information about mental health in everyday language.

    Research areas

  • Health sciences - e-mental health, mental disorders , mobile support , computerized cognitive behavioral therapy

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