Identifying the Opportunities and Challenges of Establishing an Information Therapy Center

Information therapy is a simple solution to facilitate patients' access to health information, which can contribute to patient self-care. Considering the importance  of treatment and health information, and  engagement of people with different specialties in the process of information therapy, this research was conducted    to identify the opportunities and challenges of establishing an information therapy center.

The present study was an applied-qualitative research. The study  population included patients,  medical librarians, physicians, health care providers, and psychologists with experience in information therapy and health information prescription. A purposive sampling  along with  snowball sampling were perfomed. The data were collected via  a semi-structured interview.  The data were then analyzed by using MAQDA20 software.

By analysing the interviews, we were able to identify  a main class entitled "Benefits of Information Therapy" including 4 subclasses of “patients and families”, “medical staff”, “health system”, and “medical librarians” under the main themes of "Opportunities". Under the and"Challenges", four subclasses of “barriers to information therapy”, “financial issues”, “implementation”, and “execution” were also identified.

Despite the benefits of establishing an information therapy center for patients and their families, treatment staff, psychologists and medical librarians, there are some obstacles posed by these groups and the healthcare system, which require further consideration. Careful investigation and finding solutions to  remove the obstacles as well as  creating  an approprite platform to  adopt the center in the society and health sector. In order to establish this center, it is necessary to consider inter-group and inter-organizational cooperation with  detailed planning, as well.