Prevalence of Digital Technology Use in Psychiatry Patients

Objective: Digital technologies aid in remote patient monitoring, data collection, psychoeducation, self-help applications, disease recognition, and awareness enhancement. However, literature on the utilization of digital technologies among psychiatric patients is scarce. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of digital technology usage among patients attending psychiatric outpatient clinics and compare usage patterns across different diagnoses. Materials and Methods: Between September-November 2023, 500 patients who applied to Selcuk University Faculty of Medicine Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic as outpatients and volunteered to participate in the study were included in the study. After the psychiatric interviews were completed, a questionnaire was filled out asking about the characteristics of the use of mobile technologies, internet, social media, and health applications. Results: Of the study group, 69.4% were female (n=347) and the mean age was 33.9 (±13.01) years. The educational status of 50.4% of the participants was university or master's degree. While 96% of the participants used smartphones, 16% used wearable technology (n=80). Internet usage rate was 94.8% and social media usage rate was 91%. When 251 people who did not use any health application but would like to use one were asked which features they would like to have in the application they would like to use, 78.8% stated that they would like to create an appointment, 67.7% would like an appointment time reminder, 59.7% would like drug side effect query, 55.7% would like their physician to have access to their health information, and 54.9% would like online psychotherapy. Conclusions: The prevalence of smartphone and internet use among patients applying to psychiatry is similar to the national population. There is an unmet need in terms of health applications for the psychiatric patient group. When looking at the desired characteristics of health applications, it should be taken into account that there are different demands in psychiatric diagnosis groups.