Telepsychiatry and e-Mental Health

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7410.347

BMJ 2003;327:347 (9 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7410.347

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Telepsychiatry and e-Mental Health

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The earliest reports of telepsychiatry (defined in this bookas "the delivery of health care and the exchange of informationfor purposes of providing psychiatric services across distances")date from the late 1950s, when an interactive television linkwas used in Nebraska, United States, to connect a teachinghospital department of psychiatry with a state institution.Today, e-mental health ("mental health services provided throughany form of electronic medium, most commonly via the internetor telephony") is practised in most Western countries and deliveredwidely in different ways around the world.

Eds Richard Wootton, Peter Yellowlees,Paul McLaren

Royal Society of Medicine Press, £24.95/$39.95,pp 368 ISBN 1 8531 549 7 www.rsmpress.co.uk/bkwootton3.htm

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This book is one of the first to examine this field comprehensively.It is an interesting and ultimately important read for patientsseeking valid sources of education and self help, and for allmental health professionals, whether . . . [Full text of this article]

Kristina Fi $s$ ter