JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Monitoring the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to deliver mental health and addictions (MHA) services is a global priority, especially considering the high need to shift towards virtual delivery of care in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. One way to monitor the role of ICTs in mental health care is to examine MHA policies (pre, during, and post-COVID-19) that describe a government’s vision for a mental health care system, as well as the strategies to achieve this vision. Yet, limited efforts have been made to systematically review the extent to which ICTs have been considered in mental health policies to date.

Objective:

The objective of this systematic policy review was to examine the extent to which technology is addressed in Canadian government-based MHA policy documents previous to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods:

We reviewed 22 MHA policy documents, published between 2011 to 2019, by 13 Canadian provincial and territorial governments and systematically searched each document using 39 technology-related keywords (English and French) to tabulate how frequently technology was addressed.

Results:

Technology was addressed in every document, however, to a varying degree. Out of the 39 keywords that we used to search the documents, we identified 22 categories of words pertaining to the use of technology to deliver mental health services and information. Among these 22 categories, the six most common were: tele (n = 16/22), phone (n = 12/22), tech (n = 11/22), online (n = 10/22), line (n = 10/22), and web (n = 10/22), “n” being the number of policy documents in which the category was mentioned out of the 22 documents reviewed. References to advanced technologies, such as virtual (n = 6/22) and app (n = 4/22), were less frequent. Additionally, policy documents from some provinces (e.g., Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador) mentioned a diverse range of ICTs, whereas documents from other provinces described only 1 form of ICT. None of the documents described a comprehensive vision or strategy on how ICTs could be optimally integrated within a mental health care system.

Conclusions:

This review shows how technology has been given limited strategic attention in Canadian mental health policy, which may at least partially explain why there continues to be significant gaps in the use of digital mental health services at the frontline, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings provide a pre-pandemic baseline and methodology to inform a subsequent study of how the use of digital services and innovations emerge as an important priority in mental health policy and practice, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. There is also a need for common terminology to better assess the advancement of technology’s role in mental health policies.