Social Representations of e-Mental Health Among the Actors of the Health Care System: Free-Association Study

Margot Morgiève; Pierre Mesdjian; Olivier Las Vergnas; Patrick Bury; Vincent Demassiet; Jean-Luc Roelandt; Déborah Sebbane

doi:10.2196/25708

Social Representations of e-Mental Health Among the Actors of the Health Care System: Free-Association Study

JMIR Ment Health. 2021 May 27;8(5):e25708. doi: 10.2196/25708.

Authors

Margot Morgiève^#^{1

2

3}, Pierre Mesdjian¹, Olivier Las Vergnas^{4

5}, Patrick Bury⁶, Vincent Demassiet¹, Jean-Luc Roelandt^{1

7}, Déborah Sebbane^#^{1

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health, EPSM Lille Metropole, Hellemmes, France.
² Cermes3, Centre de Recherche Médecine, Sciences, Santé, Santé Mentale et Société, Paris, France.
³ Department of Emergency Psychiatry and Acute Care, Lapeyronie Hospital, CHU Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
⁴ University of Lille, EA 4354, Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche en Education de Lille, Lille, France.
⁵ UFR Sciences Psychologiques & de l'Éducation, University Paris-Nanterre, Nanterre, France.
⁶ Cleverside, Courbevoie, France.
⁷ Inserm, Épidémiologie clinique, évaluation économique appliquées aux populations vulnérables, UMR 1123, Paris, France.
⁸ University Hospital of Lille, Lille, France.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 34042591
PMCID: PMC8193480
DOI: 10.2196/25708

Abstract

Background: Electronic mental (e-mental) health offers an opportunity to overcome many challenges such as cost, accessibility, and the stigma associated with mental health, and most people with lived experiences of mental problems are in favor of using applications and websites to manage their mental health problems. However, the use of these new technologies remains weak in the area of mental health and psychiatry.

Objective: This study aimed to characterize the social representations associated with e-mental health by all actors to implement new technologies in the best possible way in the health system.

Methods: A free-association task method was used. The data were subjected to a lexicometric analysis to qualify and quantify words by analyzing their statistical distribution, using the ALCESTE method with the IRaMuTeQ software.

Results: In order of frequency, the terms most frequently used to describe e-mental health in the whole corpus are: "care" (n=21), "internet" (n=21), "computing" (n=15), "health" (n=14), "information" (n=13), "patient" (n=12), and "tool" (n=12). The corpus of text is divided into 2 themes, with technological and computing terms on one side and medical and public health terms on the other. The largest family is focused on "care," "advances," "research," "life," "quality," and "well-being," which was significantly associated with users. The nursing group used very medical terms such as "treatment," "diagnosis," "psychiatry"," and "patient" to define e-mental health.

Conclusions: This study shows that there is a gap between the representations of users on e-mental health as a tool for improving their quality of life and those of health professionals (except nurses) that are more focused on the technological potential of these digital care tools. Developers, designers, clinicians, and users must be aware of the social representation of e-mental health conditions uses and intention of use. This understanding of everyone's stakes will make it possible to redirect the development of tools to adapt them as much as possible to the needs and expectations of the actors of the mental health system.

Keywords: digital health; e-mental health; free association task; mental health; mental health service users; psychiatry; social representations; technology.

©Margot Morgiève, Pierre Mesdjian, Olivier Las Vergnas, Patrick Bury, Vincent Demassiet, Jean-Luc Roelandt, Déborah Sebbane. Originally published in JMIR Mental Health (https://mental.jmir.org), 27.05.2021.