Health Times, Arterial Network and Good Mood Internet Hospital recently jointly released the "Blue Book of the Digital Mental Health Service Industry in 2022", showing that the new crown epidemic has brought significant psychological impacts to the public, psychological problems are gradually rising, and traditional offline diagnosis and treatment cannot fully meet the needs of psychological diagnosis and treatment. Under the epidemic situation, online digital psychological diagnosis and treatment has gradually heated up, becoming a gap in psychological diagnosis and treatment.
The psychological plight of the public under the epidemic situation and the lack of offline diagnosis and treatment are not satisfactory
During the period of home sealing, Ms. Zhang always felt that her heart was stuffy, and she could not sleep at night, and the more late at night, the more irritable she became, and her brain thought uncontrollably. She began to seek some psychological help online, such as some psychological tests, sleep radio, etc. After watching some experts' psychological science, she felt much better.
During the epidemic, people like Ms. Zhang are not in the minority. The 2022 Blue Book of Digital Mental Health Services Shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant psychological impacts to the public, with anxiety and depressive symptoms being prominent in the general mass crisis of the public in the early days of the outbreak.
A psychological counselor told the Health Times reporter that since the epidemic, the number of psychological counseling has increased, and various different degrees of psychological confusion and emotional problems need to be scientifically channeled and regulated in a timely manner. However, offline psychological diagnosis and treatment faces many problems such as uneven resources and insufficient talents.
In 2017, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security removed the psychological counselor certificate from the national occupational qualification directory, and the psychological counseling industry lacked scientific access standards and the level of practitioners was uneven. In addition, there are insufficient high-quality medical resources in psychiatry. In 2019, the National Health Commission released a report on the basic standards of 300 county hospitals that pointed out that at present, the proportion of pathology and psychiatry in mainland county hospitals meeting the requirements of the basic standards is only 41.5% and 22.8%, except for pathology and psychiatry, other related departments can meet the requirements of 60% and above of the basic standards. Under the pressure of the epidemic, the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness is facing greater challenges.
The combination of digitalization and offline diagnosis and treatment is the best way to treat psychotherapy
"The essence of digital medicine is based on evidence-based medicine, using computerized and standardized treatment methods and processes for clinical use to achieve the purpose of preventing, treating and managing diseases." Cai Shushan, director of the Center for Psychology and Cognitive Sciences of Tsinghua University, told the Health Times reporter that the efficiency and standardized performance of digital medical treatment have greatly improved clinical efficiency, and to a certain extent, alleviated the current shortage of professional talents.
According to the survey data in the "Blue Book", in 2020 and 2021, the number of offline medical treatment in the mainland will decline significantly, while the number of online diagnosis and treatment users will increase significantly. As of December 2021, the scale of online medical users in mainland China reached 298 million, an increase of 38.7% year-on-year, with a large growth trend.
In addition, in 2021, the patients on the psychiatric and psychological online medical service platform tend to be younger, mainly after 80-00, the proportion of women visiting the doctor is greater than that of men, and the use rate of the population in economically developed areas is higher. Among the four types of diseases of depression, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, the patients are mainly young people aged 20-35.
Cai Shushan believes that digital psychological diagnosis and treatment has the characteristics of timeliness, extensiveness and privacy.
"The Internet and psychological counseling actually have innate adaptation genes." Cai Shushan said that mental and psychological diseases have two major characteristics: long treatment cycle and high recurrence rate, and due to various reasons such as insufficient cognition and stigma, patients' compliance with treatment is insufficient, which in turn affects the treatment effect and increases the risk of recurrence. Therefore, continuous follow-up management and health interventions are important for the treatment and rehabilitation of mental illness.
However, in the process of development, there are also some issues that need to be paid attention to, such as information security protection and the identification of medical qualifications. Cai Shushan said that taking the online psychological diagnosis and treatment platform as an example, first of all, it is necessary to ensure that the online doctors and popular science content are true and reliable, which can effectively ensure the treatment effect of patients, and at the same time, the data of these medical processes should also be strictly protected to avoid secondary harm to patients caused by information leakage.
"Exploring digital psychotherapy has become one of the most feasible directions." Cai Shushan said that with the development of technology, digital psychological diagnosis and treatment will gradually integrate VR technology and holographic projection technology to further improve the sense of presence of online consultation. AI assistant that will enable 24-hour self-service Q&A. Big data algorithms will improve the accuracy of matching.
"This kind of digital psychological diagnosis and treatment cannot completely replace offline face-to-face diagnosis and treatment, because human delicate emotions and psychology are infinitely close to artificial intelligence but cannot be surpassed." This combination of digitalization and offline diagnosis and treatment is the best way to treat psychotherapy," Cai Shushan said. (Shi Mengzhu)