Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Feb 6, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Feb 11, 2019 - Mar 2, 2019
Date Accepted: Jun 5, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Evaluation of eMentalHealth.ca, a Canadian Mental Health Website Portal: A Mixed Methods Assessment
ABSTRACT
Background:
Many Canadians have mental health needs and it can be challenging knowing where to go for mental health information, services and supports. The website eMentalHealth.ca was created to facilitate and assist Canadians to 1) learn about mental health, 2) screen for common mental health issues, and 3) find mental health services and supports.
Objective:
This project used multiple methods to learn about visitors to eMentalHealth.ca, their perceptions and their satisfaction with the website.
Methods:
Website analytics (Google Analytics) provided information about the number of unique visits to the website and how the site is used. Online self-administered surveys were used to gather additional information on users’ characteristics and to assess their perception of the website and satisfaction with the website.
Results:
Web analytic results showed that from January 1 to December 31, 2017, there were 650,000 users, with 1.97 million page views. Users were more often female than male, and the majority of users were ages 35 years and older. Most users were located in Canada (93.4%) and the most common city of origin of users was Toronto (15.1%), followed by Ottawa (11.4%), and Montreal (4.0%). Online surveys were completed by 370 respondents in total from June to December 2017. Overall, the majority of users were satisfied with the website (93.0%, 320 out of 344 responses). Positive feedback was related to the content of the website as a helpful resource, and negative feedback was related to technical difficulties as well as the design of the main page. This analysis will be used to help the team with ongoing improvements to the website, for example improving technical issues and improving homepage usability.
Conclusions:
Most visitors reported satisfaction with their use of eMentalHealth.ca to learn about mental health, as well as where to find help. Mental health websites such as eMentalHealth.ca are a low-cost way to increase public awareness about mental health.
Citation
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Copyright
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