Emerging Needs and Viability of Telepsychiatry During and Post COVID-19 Era: A Literature Review

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in nationwide stay-at-home orders in an effort to slow the spread severely impacting the healthcare sector. Telepsychiatry provides a platform bridging the gap through advanced technologies connecting mental health providers and patients who need their services, overcoming previous barriers of great distances, lack of transportation, and even time constraints. The most obvious benefit is increased accessibility to mental healthcare, especially in underserved and remote areas where there is no easy access for in-person care. It is important to note that benefits are not limited to patients, but also allow clinicians greater flexibility in scheduling and reduced practice overhead costs, both of which aid with physician burnout and burden. Telepsychiatry during COVID-19 provides its own unique advantages over in-person visits. The risk of exposure to healthcare workers and patients receiving care is reduced, allowing immunocompromised patients to receive much-needed psychiatric care. Without the need to meet in person, self-isolating psychiatrists can still provide care, decreasing strain on their co-workers. Although telepsychiatry is relatively new, it has already exhibited considerable success in its effectiveness at treating psychiatric conditions and widespread corollary benefits. Telepsychiatric consults may be carried out synchronously and asynchronously, each having benefits and setbacks. Different mobile application interventions have been explored, which are available for the purpose of both monitoring/assessing patients and/or providing treatment. The scope of conditions these applications address is broad, from anxiety disorders to schizophrenia to depression. As promising and beneficial telepsychiatry may seem, it is necessary to recognize that building the program can be challenging. It involves adapting to new methods in medicine. We highlighted barriers to general telepsychiatry, the most prominent being technological literacy of both physician and patient, and possible negative effects of eliminating the in-person patient-doctor interaction.

Keywords: communication; covid 19; technology; tele mental health; tele psychiatry; viability of telepsychiatry; virtual clinics.