Utilization of Telemental Health Services from the Viewpoints of Psychology Students of Zahedan Universities

Nowadays, telemental health service is one of the most popular and the most successful telemedicine applications. Because of its simplicity and widespread usage of this technology, telemedicine have the largest share of data and can improve coordination between physical and behavioral health services. The purpose of using telemental health services is to provide affordable health services to patient and to improve impacts of unfair distribution of mental health care professionals. This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 2013. Data collection was performed using a researcher- made questionnaire that its validity and its reliability was confirmed by experts’ opinion and test- retest respectively. Data analysis was performed using SPSS.v17 software and descriptive statistics. The results showed that the student's awareness of concepts and applications of telemedicine in the health sector was moderate. In the sector of telemental health care effect, the most and least mean related to decrease in patients’ waiting time (3.5) and be a proper substitute for mental health care instead of physical examination (2.6), respectively. The most mean (2.8) of awareness about telemental health technology related to students of Azad Islamic university and the least one (2.3) belong to students of medical university. All of the participants had a positive attitude toward using remote mental health services as an effective and efficient treatment and also they believed that, remote mental health services act as a reliable and proper substitute for providing mental health care in difficult situations. Despite the positive attitude toward using this technology, still questions about the effectiveness and efficiency of the procedure is controversial issue and to answer the question, "Can does this technology be replaced permanently with the face to face treatment?" More researches are needed.