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Whis is the opinion of Italian psychiatrists regarding Telepsychiatry?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2022

L. Orsolini  and
U. Volpe
L. Orsolini*
Affiliation:
Polytechnic University of Marche, Department Of Clinical Neurosciences/dimsc, School Of Medicine, Unit Of Psychiatry, Ancona, Italy
U. Volpe
Affiliation:
Unit of Clinical Psychiatric, Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy, Department Of Neurosciences/dimsc, Ancona, Italy
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Italy was the first European country to face up with COVID-19 pandemic, which posed challenges to National Health System (NHS), including the need to adapt mental health services/infrastructures and implement digitalization.

Objectives

Despite telepsychiatry (ie., delivery of psychiatric care remotely through IT), is extensively used in non-European countries, only during the COVID-19 pandemic, became a convincing alternative to face-to-face modality for many psychiatrists in their clinical practice. Our aim was investigating Italian psychiatrists’ opinion about telepsychiatry.

Methods

A questionnaire, disseminated during the third Italian phase, constituted by three sections (socio-demographic, opinions and personal experience about/with telepsychiatry) was build by adapting the 42-item questionnaire by Schubert (2019) and CAMH’s Client Experience Survey from the psychiatrist’s perspective.

Results

90 questionnaires were collected from a sample of 54 women (60%) with an average age of 43(SD=11.4). Mostly were psychiatrists (85.6%) working in NHS (66.7%) with an average working years of 13.7(SD=11.5) and a previous experience in telepsychiatry (71.1%). Overall, participants do not believe that telepsychiatry is comparable with face-to-face modality. A significant positive opinion was reported among younger psychiatrists compared to those more experienced, regarding efficacy, feasibility and mental health access (p<0.05). No significant differences were reported in psychiatrists’ opinion, according to the level of telepsychiatry use in their clinical practice.

Conclusions

Overall, sufficient digital skills and knowledge of technological tools are evident among younger psychiatrists who also appeared to be more prone to implement telepsychiatry in their clinical practice.

Disclosure

No significant relationships.

Keywords

telepsychiatryCovid-19digitalizationdigital psychiatry
Type
Abstract
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 65 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 30th European Congress of Psychiatry , June 2022 , pp. S167 - S168
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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