Digital Mental Health in Ireland: Effectiveness and the Future of the Service

Abstract

Purpose: Mental disorders are serious concern in our society. In the era of digital technology , Telemental health and mental health apps are becoming an avenue where people seek mental health support, but in general very little is known about the effectiveness of the service considering the complexities surrounding mental disorder as a disease. In the light of COVID-19 pandemic, researchers noticed a spike in anxiety levels amongst the populace, prompting more people to use the service. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the users of the service to check the effectiveness, the cost of the service, and to ask whether users will opt for the service in the future. Design and Methods: Three major questions were asked to adult participants (ages 18-35 years; n=50). Female participants(n-25) and Male participants(n-25).Within the semi-structured interviews, participants were also allowed to share their lived experiences to enhance this study. The questions are as follows: 1. The effectiveness of the service in terms of recovery 2. The cost of service 3. The question about the future use of the service. Differences in groups and research variables were compared across the demographics. To measure psycho-pathology, PHQ-9, GAD-7, SAQ, Insomnia Severity Index and ASI-Lite were used to evaluate the conditions and description of the participants. This evaluation is employed to validate the patient's threshold for Telemental health intervention. Results: The people that are more likely to use the service in the future were female (85%) than their male counterpart (64%), but the groups are similar concerning the effectiveness of the service. When controlled for gender, male (85%) and female (80%) were more satisfied with the service they receive and record a positive outlook of their conditions. Compared with first-time users of the service, regular users mention service providers as key to their recovery. Participants (18-35 years, n-50) describe depression, anxiety, addictions and insomnia as the reason for the use of the service, issues responsive to neuropsychotherapeutical and cognitive behavioural therapy. About the cost, the participants (68%) seem to be satisfied with the cost while (32%) would prefer cost reduction. (Mean age-25.96 years) and (s.d-5.32). Implications: This data shows the effectiveness of Telemental health service. If expanded on a larger scale, it can take the pressure off the traditional mental health care system in Ireland, giving the practitioners time to focus on severe mental conditions. However, variables in the contextual description of patient's experiences will require value-based treatment where individual factors (bio-psycho-social analysis) are needed to be incorporated into the treatment. Besides, the data also reveals that continuous destigmatization of mental disorders will encourage men to opt for the service if societal judgment diminishes. Translating this data to the global data on mental disorders means that those regions, including rural areas without mental health support,...

Digital Mental Health and its Challenges: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Mental Health in a Crisis

“…This research was part of a project which sought to understand digital mental health care service users' experiences to weigh in on the issues that arise with the application of digital tools in mental health care, mainly the question of effectiveness in three European countries, namely, Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The first part of the findings was published to examine the effectiveness of digital mental health care in Ireland (Bamijoko-Okungbaye & Idemudia, 2020). Before recruiting participants, we introduced observations to identify resources available to those struggling with mental health challenges.…”

“…It is evident from the data available that mental health care is in a crisis, and the need to recalibrate the existing approach is long overdue. With the increased number of people struggling with disorders, scholars have called for digital tools application in mental health care to reduce the mortality rates of mental disorders (Bamijoko-Okungbaye & Idemudia, 2020).…”

Mental Disorder as an Illness: Szasz Revisited

“…His goal is to address the conceptual issues in mental health that still exist today. Others have claimed that conceptual clarification is essential to good mental health research (Bamijoko-Okungbaye & Idemudia, 2020;Kendler & Parnas, 2017;Rosenberger & Lewine, 1982). However, Szasz sees the conceptual analysis of mental disorders in the realm of psycho-social-ethical-legal.…”

Ethical issues raised in using online tele-mental health (OTH): a review of studies

“…Psychologists use online platforms to simply contribute to preventing the spread and transmission of viruses (Iqballa & Dwiastuti, 2020). Similar to this, there is a push to incorporate the current paradigm within the digital realm as psychological care services move beyond medical facilities (Bamijoko-Okungbaye & Idemudia, 2020). However, the "how" the "do's and don'ts" remains a puzzle to be solved especially if practitioners are not trained to use an online platform yet there is a need to suddenly shift to using OTH in the delivery of mental health services.…”

“…Additionally, the virtual counseling approach has been demonstrated to be successful in reducing psychopathological distress concerning depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsiveness, and interactions with others (Ierardi et al, 2022). Telemental health services may aid in the reduction of comorbidities associated with disturbances (Bamijoko-Okungbaye & Idemudia, 2020) and are reported to have high treatment effectiveness using telepsychology (Sampaio et al 2021).…”