This new peer-reviewed open access journal, published by Taylor & Francis, will cover a wide range of digital apps and applications in psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychopharmacology, but also in related research fields, such as neuroscience.
Until recently, doctors and researchers in psychiatry have relied on disease narratives and symptom observations in order to diagnose and treat. However, technological developments have created completely new conditions and opportunities.
“The new technology gives us a whole new range of opportunities to collect data and conduct measurements as is done in most other medical sciences. In particular, through various apps, we can gain information that allows us to make estimates and accurately register a person’s condition over short or long periods of time, in a way that was not previously possible”, says Jonas Eberhard, associate professor of general psychiatry at Lund University and psychiatrist at the regional psychiatric service provider Psykiatri Skåne in Sweden.
The scope for the new digital therapy journal is broad. To give a few examples, Jonas Eberhard mentions different types of portable devices that collect clinically relevant information directly from patients in a way that was not possible before, remote and online therapy to appeal to a younger generation that often expects the ability to communicate online, but also new forms of treatment using virtual reality, such as avatar therapy, when other treatments are not working. Machine learning for the development of decision-making algorithms and method development for direct implementation in healthcare are also included within the scope of digital psychiatry.
Accordingly, it is about obtaining information that cannot be observed when meeting with a patient. With the help of different measurements and tests to fall back on, lab screenings, image diagnostics, etc., researchers and doctors can acquire more clinically relevant information to better support their decisions regarding diagnosis and therapy.
“The rapid development in recent years has made us see the great potential of modern technology for conducting psychiatric research, clinical treatments and diagnosis, reflected in a major increase in related research publications and that is why we think it’s necessary to create a scientific journal focusing on digital psychiatry.”
For more information, please contact:
Jonas Eberhard, Associate Professor of General Psychiatry at Lund University and psychiatrist at Psykiatri Skåne, editor-in-chief of Digital Psychiatry
+46 (0)725 939483
Jonas [dot] Eberhard [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se (jonas[dot]eberhard[at]med[dot]lu[dot]se)