Development of User-Friendly Information Technology in Mental Health Care

摘要

Increasing services in society are provided by usinginformation and communication technologies. Thetotal number of health-related web sites has beenincreased and use of online health resources hasgrown dramatically in the last few years. However,the credibility and quality of health information onthe Internet is a concern and the consumers' view isoften forgotten during the development process ofthe services. People with mental health problems areat risk for new inequality and marginalization,because the development of the information societymay cause their exclusion from society. Manynational and international recommendations mentionaction to decrease stigmatisation by raising theprofile of mental health at all levels of society. Oneway is to supply information about mental healthproblems and mental health care using informationand communication technologies. Our aim is todescribe part of the project where the purpose is todevelop user-friendly information technology in mental health care. The purpose of this project was to identify the structure of information, content of information and appearance of web sites. The development of the information technology was carried out in six phases, which are described in the paper.