Mental Health Informatics

Mental Health Informatics offers a comprehensive examination of contemporary issues in mental health that focuses on the innovative use of computers and other information technology in support of patient care, education, services delivery, and research in the field of mental health services. This text deals with resources, devices, and formalized methods for optimizing the storage, retrieval, and management of information for problem solving and decision-making in mental health. Mental health informatics is an interdisciplinary field based upon computer and information sciences, the cognitive and decision sciences, public health and mental health (including epidemiology), and telecommunications. Researchers in informatics have discovered new methods and techniques to enhance health and mental health care, scientific and applied research, and education through information technology. The fourteen chapters are divided into four main parts, including: 1) an introduction to informatics, public health, and mental health; 2) an overview of the ethical, legal, services delivery, and organizational issues in data/records standards and technology adoption; 3) discusses research in today's online environment, addressing issues including research competencies, standards for literature reviews, constructing search strategies, and synthesizing findings; and 4) provides a discussion of the globalization of information and future issues in policy and practice in mental health informatics.