TY - JOUR
T1 - Health Professionals' Attitudes towards Electronic Psychosocial Assessments in Youth Mental Healthcare
AU - Bradford, Sally
AU - RICKWOOD, Debra
AU - Boer, Douglas
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Psychosocial assessments can help mental health professionals establish good therapeutic relationships while simultaneously conducting holistic assessments of their young clients. Using technology to conduct assessments may increase disclosure by young people; however, the uptake of new technologies into current face-to-face practice has been slow. In the current study, we were interested in exploring the attitudes of mental health workers to using an electronic psychosocial assessment tool (e-tool) within face-to-face service delivery with adolescents and young adults. An exploratory design was used to identify and qualitatively describe the views of 46 mental health workers from services across the ACT and Victoria, Australia. Data were coded using an inductive thematic approach. Comments indicated that mental health workers held both positive and negative views about the e-tool. Some participants believed that it would allow disclosure to occur in a stepped process, normalize questions, give youth greater input, and be time efficient. However, the majority believed that the e-tool would infringe on their work because they needed to respond to their clients immediately, it would not provide an accurate representation of the client, young people did not have the necessary capabilities to engage in the process, they would miss non-verbal cues from the young person, and they were more likely to gain information from organic conversations. The results suggest that many mental health professionals may be fearful of incorporating new technologies in current practice. Specific training and supportive implementation guidelines must be developed to support use of these new technologies and change practice.
AB - Psychosocial assessments can help mental health professionals establish good therapeutic relationships while simultaneously conducting holistic assessments of their young clients. Using technology to conduct assessments may increase disclosure by young people; however, the uptake of new technologies into current face-to-face practice has been slow. In the current study, we were interested in exploring the attitudes of mental health workers to using an electronic psychosocial assessment tool (e-tool) within face-to-face service delivery with adolescents and young adults. An exploratory design was used to identify and qualitatively describe the views of 46 mental health workers from services across the ACT and Victoria, Australia. Data were coded using an inductive thematic approach. Comments indicated that mental health workers held both positive and negative views about the e-tool. Some participants believed that it would allow disclosure to occur in a stepped process, normalize questions, give youth greater input, and be time efficient. However, the majority believed that the e-tool would infringe on their work because they needed to respond to their clients immediately, it would not provide an accurate representation of the client, young people did not have the necessary capabilities to engage in the process, they would miss non-verbal cues from the young person, and they were more likely to gain information from organic conversations. The results suggest that many mental health professionals may be fearful of incorporating new technologies in current practice. Specific training and supportive implementation guidelines must be developed to support use of these new technologies and change practice.
KW - Psychosocial Assessments
KW - Young People
KW - Information Communication Technologies
KW - Mental Healthcare
UR - http://www.mendeley.com/research/health-professionals-attitudes-towards-electronic-psychosocial-assessments-youth-mental-healthcare
U2 - 10.4236/health.2014.614214
DO - 10.4236/health.2014.614214
M3 - Article
SN - 1949-4998
VL - 6
SP - 1822
EP - 1833
JO - Health (Irvine)
JF - Health (Irvine)
IS - 14
ER -