Tuesday 22 May 2018

Internet Use, Depression, and Anxiety in a Healthy Adolescent Population: Prospective Cohort Study

ABSTRACT

Background: Psychiatric disorders, including conduct disturbances, substance abuse, and affective disorders, emerge in approximately 20% of adolescents. In parallel with the rise in internet use, the prevalence of depression among adolescents has increased. It remains unclear whether and how internet use impacts mental health in adolescents.

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Tuesday 8 May 2018

"Ethical Issues for Direct-to-Consumer Digital Psychotherapy Apps: Addressing Accountability, Data Protection, and Consent"


ABSTRACT

"This paper focuses on the ethical challenges presented by direct-to-consumer (DTC) digital psychotherapy services that do not involve oversight by a professional mental health provider. DTC digital psychotherapy services can potentially assist in improving access to mental health care for the many people who would otherwise not have the resources or ability to connect with a therapist. However, the lack of adequate regulation in this area exacerbates concerns over how safety, privacy, accountability, and other ethical obligations to protect an individual in therapy are addressed within these services. In the traditional therapeutic relationship, there are ethical obligations that serve to protect the interests of the client and provide warnings. In contrast, in a DTC therapy app, there are no clear lines of accountability or associated ethical obligations to protect the user seeking mental health services. The types of DTC services that present ethical challenges include apps that use a digital platform to connect users to minimally trained nonprofessional counselors, as well as services that provide counseling steered by artificial intelligence and conversational agents. There is a need for adequate oversight of DTC nonprofessional psychotherapy services and additional empirical research to inform policy that will provide protection to the consumer."

JMIR Ment Health 2018;5(2):e32

doi:10.2196/mental.9423


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Systematic review into cyberbullying and self-harm in children and young people



"The Population Psychiatry, Suicide and Informatics (PPSI) research group at Swansea University has published a systematic review of research on the relationship between cyberbullying in children and young people, and self-harm and suicidal behaviour. The review of 33 articles from 26 independent studies, covering 156,384 children and young people, concluded that children who have been cyberbullied were at a greater risk than those who had not of both suicidal behaviours and self-harm."

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