Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Aging
Date Submitted: May 4, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: May 9, 2018 - Jul 6, 2018
Date Accepted: Sep 7, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Feasibility and Conceptualization of an e-Mental Health Treatment for Depression in Older Adults: Mixed-Methods Study
Background:
Depression is one of the most common mental disorders in older adults. Unfortunately, it often goes unrecognized in the older population.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to identify how Web-based apps can recognize and help treat depression in older adults.
Methods:
Focus groups were conducted with mental health care experts. A Web-based survey of 56 older adults suffering from depression was conducted. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 2 individuals.
Results:
Results of the focus groups highlighted that there is a need for a collaborative care platform for depression in old age. Findings from the Web-based study showed that younger participants (aged 50 to 64 years) used electronic media more often than older participants (aged 65 years and older). The interviews pointed in a comparable direction.
Conclusions:
Overall, an e-mental (electronic mental) health treatment for depression in older adults would be well accepted. Web-based care platforms should be developed, evaluated, and in case of evidence for their effectiveness, integrated into the everyday clinic.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.