How Can Digital Mental Health Enhance Psychiatry?

The use of digital technologies is constantly growing around the world. The wider-spread adoption of digital technologies and solutions in the daily clinical practice in psychiatry seems to be a question of when, not if. We propose a synthesis of the scientific literature on digital technologies in psychiatry and discuss the main aspects of its possible uses and interests in psychiatry according to three domains of influence that appeared to us: 1) assist and improve current care: digital psychiatry allows for more people to have access to care by simply being more accessible but also by being less stigmatized and more convenient; 2) develop new treatments: digital psychiatry allows for new treatments to be distributed via apps, and practical guidelines can reduce ethical challenges and increase the efficacy of digital tools; and 3) produce scientific and medical knowledge: digital technologies offer larger and more objective data collection, allowing for more detection and prevention of symptoms. Finally, ethical and efficacy issues remain, and some guidelines have been put forth on how to safely use these solutions and prepare for the future.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Emilie Stern, Guillaume Dumas, Jeverson Moreira, Julia Maruani, and Michel Lejoyeux declare no conflicts of interest. Jean-Arthur Micoulaud Franchi has received a speaker honorarium from Gilead and EISAI. Stephane Mouchabac has received consulting fees from Janssen, Otsuka, Eisai, Lundbeck, Pfizer, Clovis, and Nordic Pharma. Pierre Philip has shares in MY-MED-A company and also received a speaker honorarium from Jazz Pharmaceuticals. Pierre A. Geoffroy has received a speaker honorarium from Janssen-Cilag, Jazz pharmaceuticals, Lundbeck, MonSommeil, and Withings and received consulting fees from Apneal, Janssen-Cilag, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Myndblue, Posos, ResilEyes, and Withings.