Author: admin

Christiane Eichenberg & Markus Schott (2016): An Empirical Analysis of Internet Message Boards for Self-Harming Behavior

ABSTRACT

Much debate sur­rounds the poten­tial effects of self-harm forum use. Argu­ments in favor high­light fac­tors such as pro­vi­ding access to a sup­por­tive com­mu­nity. Howe­ver cri­ti­cal voice high­light­ing poten­tial dan­gers such as forums ser­ving as a plat­form to pro­mote self-harm, clearly domi­nate the debate. Using an online ques­ti­on­naire, the goal of the cur­rent study was to examine soci­ode­mo­gra­phic cha­rac­te­ris­tics, the psy­cho­pa­tho­logy of forum users, moti­ves for par­ti­ci­pa­ting, and sub­jec­tive effects of self-harm forum use. A total of 309 self-harm forum users par­ti­ci­pa­ted in this study. 3 hete­ro­ge­neous user types with dif­fe­ring moti­ves for visit­ing the forum and dif­fe­rent usage effects were iden­ti­fied. The results ques­tion the assump­ti­ons that self-harm forums are a source of harm and point to their pre­do­mi­nantly con­struc­tive and preven­tive func­tions.

Full ver­sion: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13811118.2016.1259597

Eichen­berg, C. & Schott, M. (2016). An Empi­ri­cal Ana­ly­sis of Inter­net Mes­sage Boards for Self-Harming Beha­vior. Archi­ves of Sui­cide Rese­arch, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13811118.2016.1259597.

Do Therapists Google Their Patients? A Survey Among Psychotherapists

ABSTRACT

Back­ground: The increa­sing use of the Inter­net and its array of social net­works brings new ways for psy­cho­the­ra­pists to find out infor­ma­tion about their pati­ents, often refer­red to as patient-targeted goog­ling (PTG). Howe­ver, this topic has been sub­ject to little empi­ri­cal rese­arch; there has been hardly any atten­tion given to it in Ger­many and the rest of Europe and it has not been inclu­ded in ethi­cal gui­de­li­nes for psy­cho­the­rapy des­pite the com­plex ethi­cal issues it rai­ses.

Objec­tive: This study explo­red Ger­man psy­cho­the­ra­pists’ beha­vior and expe­ri­en­ces rela­ted to PTG, inves­ti­ga­ted how these vary with soci­ode­mo­gra­phic fac­tors and the­ra­peutic back­ground, and explo­red the cir­cum­stan­ces in which psy­cho­the­ra­pists con­side­red PTG to be appro­priate or not.

Methods: A total of 207 psy­cho­the­ra­pists respon­ded to a newly deve­lo­ped ques­ti­on­naire that asses­sed their expe­ri­ence of and views on PTG. The study sam­ple was a non­re­pre­sen­ta­tive con­ve­ni­ence sam­ple recrui­ted online via several German-speaking pro­fes­sio­nal the­rapy plat­forms.

Results: Most the­ra­pists (84.5%, 174/207) sta­ted that they had not actively con­side­red the topic of PTG. Howe­ver, 39.6% (82/207) said that they had alre­ady loo­ked for pati­ent infor­ma­tion online (eg, when they sus­pec­ted a pati­ent may have been lying) and 39.3% (81/207) knew col­leagues or super­vi­sors who had done so. Only 2.4% (5/207) of the­ra­pists had come across PTG during their edu­ca­tion and trai­ning.

Con­clu­si­ons: It is essen­tial to pro­vide PTG as a part of the­ra­pists’ edu­ca­tion and trai­ning. Fur­ther­more, the com­plex pro­blems con­cerning PTG should be intro­du­ced into codes of ethics to pro­vide expli­cit gui­dance for psy­cho­the­ra­pists in prac­tice. This report pro­vi­des initial sug­ges­ti­ons to open up debate on this topic.

Full ver­sion: http://www.jmir.org/2016/1/e3/

Eichen­berg, C. & Herz­berg, P.Y. (2016). Do The­ra­pists Google Their Pati­ents? A Sur­vey Among Psy­cho­the­ra­pists. J Med Inter­net Res, 18 (1):e3. DOI: 10.2196/jmir.4306.