Psychiatric Patients Tracking Through a Private Social Network for Relatives: Development and Pilot Study

• Published in: Journal of medical systems 2016-07, Vol.40 (7), p.172-172, Article 172
• Main Authors: García-Peñalvo, Francisco J, Franco, Martín Manuel, García-Holgado, Alicia, Guzmán José Miguel Toribio, Antón Jesús Largo, Sánchez-Gómez, Ma Cruz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Caregivers; Communication; Consumer Health Information - organization & administration; Context; Day care centers; Families & family life; Family; Female; Friends; Health care; Health Informatics; Health problems; Health Sciences; Health services; Humans; Information systems; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mental disorders; Mental Disorders - rehabilitation; Mental health; New Trends in Computer Applications in Health Sciences (TEEM 2015); Patient Facing Systems; Patients; Pictures; Pilot Projects; Privacy; Psychiatry; Recovery; Rehabilitation; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - rehabilitation; Severity of Illness Index; Social factors; Social Media - organization & administration; Social networks; Social organization; Social Support; Spain; Statistics for Life Sciences; Virtual networks
• ISSN: 0148-5598; 1573-689X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10916-016-0530-5

The treatment of psychiatric patients requires different health care from that of patients from other medical specialties. In particular, in the case of Department of Psychiatry from the Zamora Hospital (Spain), the period of time which patients require institutionalized care is a tiny part of their treatment. A large part of health care provided to the patient is aimed at his/her rehabilitation and social integration through day-care centres, supervised flats or activities. Conversely, several reports reveal that approximately 50 % of Internet users use the network as a source of health information, which has led to the emergence of virtual communities where patients, relatives or health professionals share their knowledge concerning an illness, health problem or specific health condition. In this context, we have identified that the relatives have a lack of information regarding the daily activities of patients under psychiatric treatment. The social networks or the virtual communities regarding health problems do not provide a private space where relatives can follow the patient’s progress, despite being in different places. The goal of the study was to use technologies to develop a private social network for being used by severe mental patients (mainly schizophrenic patients). SocialNet is a pioneer social network in the health sector because it provides a social interaction context restricted to persons authorized by the patient or his/her legal guardian in such a way that they can track his/her daily activity. Each patient has a private area only accessible to authorized persons and their caregivers, where they can share pictures, videos or texts regarding his/her progress. A preliminary study of usability of the system has been made for increasing the usefulness and usability of SocialNet. SocialNet is the first system for promoting personal interactions among formal caregivers, family, close friends and patient, promoting the recovery of schizophrenic patients. Future studies should study the network’s potential usefulness for improving the prognosis and recovery of schizophrenia.