Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Apr 24, 2023
Date Accepted: Jan 25, 2024
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
The urgent need for an evidence-based Digital Mental Health Practice Model of Care for Youth
ABSTRACT
Australian providers of mental health services for youth include private and public allied health providers, government initiatives (e.g., headspace), non-government organisations (NGOs), GPs and the hospital system. Over 20 years of research has established that youth prefer to seek mental health support online and tend to only access offline services when their needs are not being met online, or their mental health symptoms increase in severity. We propose a Digital Mental Health Practice model of care for youth to assist with digital mental health service mapping. This proposed model offers clear and accessible pathways for a client to enter the online mental health system, provides accurate navigation to access support for individual needs, and facilitates a seamless connection with offline mental health services using a transferrable patient records system. We conclude with why this is an urgent matter to address, given the impact of COVID-19 on Australia’s health system and the fast-paced changes in technology, such as AI and the metaverse, that must be accounted for as potential tools to be leveraged for digital therapies and support systems. N/A N/A N/A N/A
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