Abstract

Psychotic disorders are the most disabling of all mental illnesses and place a heavy demand on limited mental health services. Consequently, this research aims to develop novel approaches to care which are less demanding of public resources. This research-in-progress is based in an innovative youth mental health service in Australia. It presents a model for a web-based platform which provides support for relapse prevention in young people with first-episode psychosis (FEP). This study combines Information Systems and Psychology theory and research to develop an advanced web-based interactive psychosocial intervention for relapse prevention and recovery in FEP. While web-based applications to support schizophrenia, depression and anxiety have been researched such approaches have not been applied to the problem of relapse prevention in young people with FEP. The research uses focus groups to study case managers, clients of the support organisation and usability experts to inform an initial prototype which has then been presented to a group of clients for evaluation. It concludes that an intervention based on intelligent technologies which combine social networking and web-based treatment to promote independent home based care would best suit the characteristics of the target group and should be tested in large-scale in the community.

Keywords

Psycho-social intervention, Technology

ISBN

ISBN: [978-1-86435-644-1]; Research-in-progress paper

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