Majority Feel In-person Therapy to be More Effective Compared to Remote Care

Digital health technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach mental health. By providing assistive, preventative, and therapeutic solutions, digital mental health tools can help mitigate the negative effects of mental disorders on both individuals and society as a whole. However, despite the potential benefits, there is limited evidence that these tools are being effectively implemented in clinical settings.

One possible reason is the lack of technical and medical standards for digital mental health apps, personalized neurotechnology, and assistive cognitive technology. Additionally, ethical concerns have been raised about the effectiveness, clinical validation, and user-centered design of current digital mental health products and the potential for data privacy breaches.

Despite these challenges, the use of digital mental health tools is an exciting area of research and development. If these tools are used to their fullest potential, they can make a real difference in the lives of those who need them most.

Real Research, an online survey app, launched a survey on digital mental healthcare to address the issues of standards, effectiveness, and opinions.

Highlights

• Almost half (49.28%) are familiar with digital mental healthcare services
• 22.09% have prior experience with digital mental healthcare support
• 38.58% prefer in-person therapy, compared to 32.49% who prefer remote

Our analysis revealed a variety of themes related to the potential and ethical issues of using digital mental health technologies. To give a clear understanding, figure 1 presents a graphical representation of the awareness that came up during our analysis. The graph shows 49.28% are aware of digital mental health technologies, leaving 12.62% who are unaware.

With rising mental health cases and increasing awareness, we are also witnessing a substantial increase in digital healthcare services usage. 22.09% have been prior patients of remote therapeutic services, and 21.76% have been providers. On the other hand, 27.47% have not used such services but are aware of someone who did, and similarly, 28.68% have not used such services but plan on consulting with one in the future.

Prior consumers of digital therapeutic services have reported they always receive mental healthcare services (24.42%). Followed by “very frequently (16.76%),” “ occasionally (18.28%),” “rarely (13.75%),” “ very rarely (9.15%),”  and “never used (17.64%).”

Why is Digital Mental Healthcare Worth Considering?

Other studies have shown that the willingness to use digital mental health technologies may be increased by their ability to provide more anonymous interactions compared to in-person meetings with healthcare professionals. The digital space offers flexibility and anonymity, which can help young adults avoid social stigmatization and feel more comfortable sharing personal information. They can easily access therapy through their smartphones without revealing their identity.

Benefits of Digital Mental Healthcare

Likewise, our study highlights why people may consider remote healthcare and its benefits compared to in-person therapy. The following are respondents’ comments on its advantages.

Receiving professional help in the comfort and convenience of your home (16.59%), the convenience of making time for appointments between busy schedules (14.73%), better accessibility through technology (11.81%), reduced cost of services (no transport costs) (10.76%), more equitable services (10.05%), a sense of greater ownership over patients’ health goals (11.34%), and professionals can examine patients in their comfortable environment (11.68%).

Drawbacks of Digital Mental Healthcare

In contrast, some people may find it difficult to set up their devices and get ready for their appointment. Most importantly, while sessions can be held in the comfort of your house, there is a huge probability of overlooking body language and physical traits.

Accessibility

Both online and in-person counseling interventions have been found to effectively reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, OCD, and interpersonal sensitivity, with online counseling showing a medium-high effect size and in-person counseling showing a large effect size. Additionally, both interventions have been shown to be effective in reducing overall psychopathological distress, although in-person counseling has a stronger overall effect.

Both remote and Face-to-face (F2F) saw similar results. 20.94% said that remote is more accessible compared to 21.39% who said F2F, and 18.43% said both types are easily accessible.

14.87% found that neither of them is very accessible, and 24.37% remained uncertain.

Effectiveness

Furthermore, the following survey revealed the effectiveness of both remote and F2F. To provide a clear visual representation of the findings, a graph (Figure 2) is included to show the effectiveness that emerged from our analysis.

23.52% said F2F care is more effective, 18.31% said remote is more effective, 19.1% said both are effective, 14.76% said neither of them is effective, and 24.31% remained unsure.

Preferences

Our final finding shows us that, again, both remote and F2F sits at par. 32.49% preferred remote mental healthcare sessions, and 38.58% chose the opposite.

Conclusion

While the use of digital delivery for mental health treatment has been in practice for a while, the research on it is lacking in consistency and comprehensiveness. Guidelines are needed to improve the reliability and consistency of reporting, evaluation, and quality and bias assessments. Furthermore, living systematic reviews for disorders such as bipolar, personality, developmental, dementia, and sleep-wake disorders could help guide and organize new digital treatment strategies.

Combining digital treatment methods with real-time communication with a healthcare practitioner has been found to be just as effective as traditional, non-digital methods. However, it is important to consider factors such as the feasibility of treatment, caregiver burden, patient-specific symptoms (such as paranoia), and patient-specific parameters when offering digital treatments. Additionally, more research is needed specifically for marginalized populations facing greater mental health treatment barriers.