Development of user-friendly information technology in mental health care

Increasing services in society are provided by using information and communication technologies. The total number of health-related web sites has been increased and use of online health resources has grown dramatically in the last few years. However, the credibility and quality of health information on the Internet is a concern and the consumers' view is often forgotten during the development process of the services. People with mental health problems are at risk for new inequality and marginalization, because the development of the information society may cause their exclusion from society. Many national and international recommendations mention action to decrease stigmatisation by raising the profile of mental health at all levels of society. One way is to supply information about mental health problems and mental health care using information and communication technologies. Our aim is to describe part of the project where the purpose is to develop user-friendly information technology in mental health care. The purpose of this project was to identify the structure of information, content of information and appearance of web sites. The development of the information technology was carried out in six phases, which are described in the paper.