Abstract
Objectives: Digital treatment formats are emerging within mental health care. Evidence suggests that mental health care providers and recipients prefer a combination of digital and traditional elements within psychotherapy treatment formats, also called blended care (BC), over standalone digital formats. We examined the attitudes and preferences of licensed psychotherapists in Germany regarding such BC applications. Methods: We fielded a survey among psychotherapists, including questions about attitudes, previous experiences, and expectations regarding BC, as well as a discrete choice experiment. Attributes for the experiment were developed using a stepwise qualitative approach. A Bayesian D-efficient design was used to generate the choice tasks. The choice data were analyzed by applying mixed logit models. Results: The survey was completed by 200 psychotherapists. Attitudes towards BC were mainly positive, with strong reported intentions to use BC formats. In the choice experiment, recommendation from a professional society for a BC online component was the most important characteristic. Greater effectiveness and a larger share of face-to-face vs. online time were also desired features, while a financial incentive to use BC was less relevant.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 112 |
| Journal | BMC Psychiatry |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 12 Feb 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Sebastian F. Himmler has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 721402.
Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).
