E-health: Taking a Step Towards the Future

Digitalisation has been becoming part of our daily life over the past century. As a result, new
concepts have been developed such as “digital well-being”. It is defined as the capacity to look after
personal health, safety, relationships and work-life balance in digital settings. In line with these
developments, “a Europe fit for the digital age” has been defined as one of the six political priorities
of the Commission 2019-2024. One of the important implications of digitalisation is the health care-
systems is increasing up-take of digital psychological interventions and mobile applications as
standalone and/or an addition to the face-to-face counterparts in treatment of common mental
health conditions such as depression and anxiety symptoms. An umbrella terms “e-health” can be
used to conceptualise such interventions. E-health promises effective, accessible, and cost-effective
services especially in treating common mental health conditions as well as problems such as
interpersonal violence. With the outbreak of the corona-virus disease worldwide, the mental health
care institutions are expected to be short of human and financial resources, thereby strengthening
the shift in mental health care provision towards e-health in the foreseeable future. Since we
envisage that e-health will be prioritised in research agendas, and public health policies globally in
the foreseeable future, we are proposing to contribute to the capacity building, and knowledge base
of the future psychologists in the 36 th EFPSA Congress, entitled “E-health: Taking a Step Towards the
Future”.