Clinical decision support systems in mental health: A scoping review of health professionals’ experiences

Background

Clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) have the potential to assist health professionals in making informed and cost-effective clinical decisions while reducing medical errors. However, compared to physical health, CDSSs have been less investigated within the mental health context. In particular, despite mental health professionals being the primary users of mental health CDSSs, few studies have explored their experiences and/or views on these systems. Furthermore, we are not aware of any reviews specifically focusing on this topic. To address this gap, we conducted a scoping review to map the state of the art in studies examining CDSSs from the perspectives of mental health professionals.

Method

In this review, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guideline, we systematically searched the relevant literature in two databases, PubMed and PsycINFO.

Findings

We identified 23 articles describing 20 CDSSs Through the synthesis of qualitative findings, four key barriers and three facilitators to the adoption of CDSSs were identified. Although we did not synthesize quantitative findings due to the heterogeneity of the results and methodologies, we emphasize the issue of a lack of valid quantitative methods for evaluating CDSSs from the perspectives of mental health professionals.

Significance

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review examining mental health professionals’ experiences and views on CDSSs. We identified facilitators and barriers to adopting CDSSs and highlighted the need for standardizing research methods to evaluate CDSSs in the mental health space.