Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Sep 26, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 25, 2025 - Nov 20, 2025
Date Accepted: Mar 10, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Willingness of patients with mental disorders in China to engage in online psychotherapy: A multicenter cross-sectional survey
ABSTRACT
Background:
China faces a high prevalence of mental disorders yet demonstrates low treatment uptake, a gap driven by limited awareness and unevenly distributed mental health resources. While online psychotherapy has potential to expand access, patient willingness remains insufficiently explored.
Objective:
This study aims to investigate the willingness to engage in online psychotherapy among Chinese patients with mental disorders and identified associated factors.
Methods:
A multicenter, cross-sectional survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire to assess the attitudes and willingness of patients with mental disorders in China to engage in online psychotherapy. Willingness to engage in online psychotherapy was assessed using a 0–100 rating scale, with higher scores indicating greater willingness. Univariate analysis, correlation analysis and multivariate linear regression analyses were used to identify factors influencing willingness.
Results:
Among 361 eligible participants, the mean (SD) willingness score of online psychotherapy is 70 (28.56). A total of 86.4% of participants preferred short-term therapy (1-10 sessions), while 92.5% expected the cost per session to remain under 400 yuan. Participants most preferred therapist-guided online individual therapy (39.3%). Convenience (34.3%) and perceived anonymity ("No one will know about the illness"; 33.0%) were the two dominant perceived benefits of online therapy. The leading barrier was concerns about data security and privacy (35.6%), followed by difficulty establishing therapeutic rapport (19.8%). The regression analysis revealed that age, self-stigma of seeking help (SSOSH total score), satisfaction with current psychiatric medications, and satisfaction with prior online psychotherapy significantly influenced patients' willingness to seek online psychotherapy.
Conclusions:
Our study found that Chinese patients with mental disorders demonstrate a relatively high willingness to engage in online psychotherapy, suggesting broad potential for its application in China.
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.