Colloquia

Samenvatting

Mental health care focuses on prevention, treatment and cure on the one hand, and learning to cope with your condition and being able to participate in society (again) on the other hand. Mental healthcare professionals use a wide range of interventions and skills to treat patients with mental illnesses. The application of eHealth in mental health care has developed rapidly in recent years. However, these expectations have not been fulfilled. The COVID-19 pandemic gave a new impulse to eHealth. During the pandemic, mental healthcare professionals were forced to provide care at a distance.

This research has explored how mental healthcare professionals have dealt with the rapid implementation of technology in their care practice and how this has changed their care. The design challenge was defined as: “How can we invite mental health care professionals to become sensitive for the choice between face-to-face, telecare or blended therapy, by drawing upon their existing knowledge and experience.” To become aware of when which form of therapy can be of added value to the treatment. In order to think about the changing context when switching between the different forms of therapy and how this can positively contribute to the recovery process of patients.

Insights into the current mental healthcare practice and experiences regarding the implementation of technology in the care relationship have been incorporated into a poster series with the intended purpose of supporting care professionals by making these changes and possibilities more explicit, so the choice for the form of therapy can be made more deliberately.

The validation results provided insight into the influence of the poster series as a conversational trigger both among mental healthcare professionals and in conversations with their patients. In which mental healthcare professionals confirmed that they discussed alternative forms of treatment more than they did intuitively before. This indicates an increased sensitivity to the various choices that mental healthcare professionals have. However, whether this has also led to an increased use of alternative forms is unclear. This study therefore only contributes to the articulation of the changing healthcare practice and the impact of the choices that mental healthcare professionals have in shaping care. The tool that has been developed, the poster series, has nevertheless made a positive contribution to the discussion about this topic, and can in this way contribute to increasing the sensitivity of mental healthcare professionals for the changing practice.