Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Nov 6, 2021
Date Accepted: Oct 5, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Factors associated with eMental health adoption readiness and use by mental health counsellors in general practices
ABSTRACT
Background:
Literature shows that mental health care counsellors generally have a high adoption readiness for eMental Health, while the actual use of eMental Health in patients is limited. Facilitating future adoption and use requires insight into the most important underlying factors, as well as the eligibility criteria the mental health care counsellors use in their decision to apply eMental Health for their (vulnerable) patients.
Objective:
This study examined the use and non-use of eMental Health by mental health counsellors and aimed to unfold the underlying reasons and readiness to adopt eMental Health.
Methods:
A theoretical model was developed, based on the Reasoned Action Approach, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology Model and the Measurement Instrument Determinants of Innovations model. By means of an online survey among mental health counsellors (N = 132), this model was empirically validated. An additional study goal was to unveil the criteria mental health counsellors use to estimate patients’ eligibility for eMental health.
Results:
The most important predictors of the readiness of mental health counsellors to adopt eMental health were the perceived usefulness and benefits. eMental Health also needed to be easily accessible and making use of an eMental Health application should match the task perception of the mental health counsellor. The readiness of mental health counsellors to adopt eMental health had a direct and an indirect effect (via estimated patients’ eligibility for eMental health) on the use of eMental Health by the counsellors. In order to determine whether eMental health suited a patient, the mental health counsellors not only looked at whether the patients had access to a computer and internet and had sufficient digital and Dutch language skills, but they also considered it crucial that the patients were motivated to use eMental health.
Conclusions:
The study revealed that there will only be a future for eMental health in general practice if the mental health counsellor is convinced of the benefits of eMental health and can transfer this enthusiasm to the patient. It is recommended to involve mental health counsellors in the development of eMental health to increase the (perceived) added value and use in general practice.
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