Review of Challenges and Opportunities Health Information Technology-based Art Therapy in Education and Treatment

Considering the capabilities and potentials of health information technology in the field of art therapy and its effective role in increasing the quality of life of patients and improving the capabilities of health care personnel, the purpose of this study is to review the challenges and opportunities of applying art in education and treatment based on information technology. Information source or data: In this study, the review was conducted on English scientific databases, including PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct ProQuest, Ovid, Google Scholar, as well as Persian scientific databases including IranMedex, MagIran, IranDoc and SID.

In the present study, first articles and soft wares related to the use of information technology in art therapy were searched from the mentioned websites and databases. Keywords used for searching were art therapy, medical education, treatment, information technology, expert system, virtual reality and Telehealth. The results were extracted from related articles.

The results were presented in three sections including application of art in medicine, application of information technology in art therapy and challenges in this field. In the field of application of art in medicine, three aspects of improving patient education, lack of education of students and health care personnel and improving clinical outcomes were examined. In the field of application of information technology in art therapy, a review of technologies such as virtual reality, expert systems and telemedicine was performed. The main challenges identified in this area were high cost and confidentiality of information.

The high acceptance of the use of information technology in communities is seen as an opportunity for therapists to share art in the context of information technology. In designing IT-based art therapy programs, one should pay attention to the implementation process, execution time, and the type of art and technology interventions based on the dominant conditions.