Background
Pressures to develop information society as part of public services have increased. However, if usability, quality and reliability of Internet-based services are not assured, the development of technologies may involve a risk of new inequality and marginalization.
Patients with mental health problems are a group, which can easily be excluded from the information society. In generally, mental problems already are a national concern in Finland. Globally, schizophrenia, for example, is a high cost illness disturbing everyday lives of patients and their families, social relationships, and quality of life. Coherent information is still lacking on the impact of IT and its applicability to mental health care organisations.
To avoid alienation of mental patients and the introduction of more expensive technologies without knowing the effects on staff and organisational performance, we should systematically test the relevance of IT in daily clinical practice health services from the patient, staff and organisational perspectives.