MentalDoc - The Therapist in your Pocket

Abstract

In Switzerland, 27% of the population suffers from a psychological illness at least once in their life. Only a quarter of the affected people receive treatment, while about 400,000 indi-viduals with mental illnesses remain untreated. Psychological disorders severely affect the impacted people and cause high economic costs. The treatment gap is caused by access barriers like stigmatization, increased time and financial effort and low availability of psychi-atric services in agglomerations and rural areas. By applying design science research and conducting qualitative interviews with 14 mental health experts, this master thesis proposes a business model for a digital psychotherapy platform to improve access to mental health services. The research results show a high demand for video psychotherapies among therapists and patients. The need for remote therapies will increase in the coming years as digital therapy forms become more popular. The COVID-19 pandemic sparked the implementation of video therapies among psychiatric institutions and psychotherapists, and they recognised the ad-vantages digital therapy solutions provide. The interviewed experts observe a mind shift that will lead to more digital doctor visits and higher usage of digital therapy tools.