title: Patient-provider communication over social media: perspectives of adolescents with psychiatric illness.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Social media is an increasingly dominant platform for communication, especially among adolescents. Statements from professional bodies and a growing body of empirical evidence support a role for social media in improving provider-patient interactions. In psychiatry, particular concerns exist about the suitability of this style of communication. Very limited data are available exploring how patients would like to incorporate social media into their communication with their psychiatric providers.
  
  
  METHODS
  We conducted a qualitative study with 20 adolescents attending the Yale Psychiatric Hospital Intensive Outpatient Programme. Interviews were analysed using inductive thematic analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participants highlighted how social media could allow for constant access to a mental health provider, provide a less anxiety-provoking mode of communication, and allow for them to be monitored in a more on-going fashion. However, participants also identified many potential risks associated with these applications, including the potential for anxiety if a provider was not able to respond immediately, and a sense that online interactions would be less rich overall.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings suggest that adolescents are open to the idea of communicating with mental health providers over social media and are able to describe a number of instances where this could be of value. The risks participants described, as well as concerns raised by existing literature, indicate the need for further work and protocol development in order for social media to be a feasible tool for communication between providers and adolescents with psychiatric illness.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Samuel H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: van Rensburg
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Klingensmith
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Paige
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: McLaughlin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and in the Yale Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Zheala
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Qayyum
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Gerrit I
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6286-562X
authors.initials: GI
authors.lastname: van Schalkwyk
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000379:methods; D036301:Qualitative Research; D061108:Social Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: adolescents; electronic communication; social media