Survey on Digital Mental Health Care

Even though professionals started experimenting by offering virtual health care way before the pandemic struck, it wasn’t until the COVID-19 unleashed that the virtual health care options led to unprecedented growth.

In this blog, let’s go ahead and examine how the delivery of virtual health care options have become efficacious for improving outcomes like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in comparison to in-person therapy.

Here are some reasons why delivering mental health care virtually is deemed a boon by some.

• Receiving professional help at the comfort and convenience of your home.

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea to expose your most vulnerable self out in the open in a stranger’s office. Having your personal mental health care professional come to you, at your place of comfort is just what you will need at times like this.

• Making time for mental health between busy schedules.

In between the grand hustles of today’s life, it’s sometimes difficult to prioritize one’s mental health. Fixing an appointment and driving out to that distance might be too time consuming compared to the ease you will experience in having your therapist be available to you at any convenience.

• Reduced cost of mental health care

Setting up a virtual call from therapist to patient will cost much less than when compared to the cost of setting up an office and all the required utilities to make a patient comfortable in the alien space.

• More equitable mental health care.

No shame, no stigma. On a virtual appointment, your mental health matters remain between you and your therapist. This makes mental health care an easy open option for all those who need it, hence, making it equitable for all.

• Patients take greater ownership over their health goals.

A virtual appointment will more likely be upon the initiative of the patient themselves. This also means they will not have a family member along, making them take greater ownership over their recovery and health goals.

• Professionals can evaluate patients in their natural space.

Since the patient visits the therapist from their natural space, it’s easier for the therapist to diagnose and evaluate the patient.

All said, delivering mental health virtually also comes with its own set of disadvantages like lack of access to technological facilities such as smart devices, internet connection, etc., lack of response to emergencies and crisis situations like suicide or other critical mental health issues, not effective for psychiatric illnesses like addiction or other complex mental health woes, chances of overlooking body language and physical traits, ethical and legal concerns may not align with the patient’s rights, risk of data breaches by hackers and scammers.

Hence, Real Research, an online survey app, launched a survey on digital mental health care from January 21, 2023. Afterward, you will receive 70 TNCs as a reward.