Web-and Internet-Based Services: Education, Support, Self-Care, Formal, and Hybrid Treatment Approaches

Web-and Internet-based resources are remarkably popular with the public, patients, and providers as interventions over the last decades. Opportunities exist for health information, support groups, formal education programs, tools for self-directed lifestyle and illness management, obtaining advice/consultation, and self-or provider-directed treatments. Traditional treatments are more easily disseminated to the point-of-service. Modification of regular treatments is being developed, based on smartphone and web medical applications, and applying virtual reality/avatars from games into medicine. Digital mental health (DMH) innovations/new treatments for special populations are made possible, and hybrid models are now becoming more and more popular, creating the opportunity to develop a true personalized psychiatry and integration of medical data from treatment by psychiatrists and somatic physicians. Clinicians must become aware of, adapt, use sound clinical judgment, and serve new advisory roles to patients, as we are all challenged to keep the best of mental healthcare, yet make it more accessible. The development of DMH forces the introduction of mandatory training in the use of medical applications and platforms for both medical students and doctors, as well as the creation and implementation of recommendations of scientific societies and legal regulations, enabling further development of DMH based on algorithms for narrow artificial intelligence, and in the future—general artificial intelligence.