Digitalisation in Mental Health and Care
The WPA Working Group on Digital Mental Health -previously named the Working Group on Digitalization in Mental Health and Care- aims to make a worldwide contribution to digitally supplement, support, and improve mental health and care. Through capacity building, research, and skilled use of new health technologies and programs, (public) mental health and care shall be upscaled.
The Working Group will contribute to improving public, governmental, provider, and professional digital mental health and care literacy, acceptance, and accessibility across WPA member countries. This is a prerequisite for the successful promotion and implementation of high-quality digital health technologies and programs for self-management, prevention, early recognition and intervention, and treatment and care, helping to close gaps in routine care and providing universal coverage. At the same time, the Working Group aims to improve professional collaboration in the best interests of people at risk for or with mental illness, empowering them, and reducing stigma and discrimination.
CHAIR - Wolfgang Gaebel
Univ.Prof.med.
Professor of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy WHO Collaborating Centre on Quality Assurance and Empowerment in Mental Health
DEU-131 LVR-Klinikum Düsseldorf
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
Heinrich Heine University
CO-CHAIR - Prof. Umberto Volpe
MD,PhD
Director of the Unit of Clinical Psychiatry Director of the School of Specialization in Psychiatry
Department of Clinical Neurosciences/DIMSC
School of Medicine
Università Politecnica delle Marche
Via Tronto 10/A 60126 Ancona - ITALY
SECRETARY - Rodrigo Ramalho
MD,PhD
Department of Social and Community Health School of Population Health, The University of Auckland Private Bag 92019,
Auckland 1142, New Zealand
- Working Group Activity Report 2020-2023
- Global Digitalization Action Plan 2023-2026 (Shorter version)
- Global Digitalization Action Plan 2023-2026 (Longer version)
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Expert Group on Impact of Digitalization:
The Working Group supports the WPA Specialist Corner initiative through the Expert Group on Impact of Digitalization
- WPA Position Statement on Global Digitalization in Mental Health and Care
- Survey on Digitalization in Mental Health and Care across WPA Member Associations
- Survey on Digitalization in Mental Health and Care: The status of global digital mental health - selected findings from a baseline survey
- Risks of digitalization in mental health care (October 2025)
- An international expert survey on the worldwide digitalization in psychiatry: Global findings from the WPA survey (January 2025)
- The Current Status of Global Digital Mental Health Implementation: Results and Implications of a Web-Based Survey from All WPA Regions (October 2024)
- WPA Digitalization in Mental Health and Care: Empirical Report on Action Plan and Related Activities (October 2023)
- An update from the WPA Working Group on Digitalization in Mental Health and Care (October 2023)
- News from the WPA Working Group on Digitalization in Mental Health (September 2023)
In person course: How to Integrate Telemedicine and Artificial Intelligence in Digital Psychiatric Practice.
WPA World Congress, Stockholm, Sweden, 23-26 September 2026
Course outline:
This live course will take place in Sweden during the WPA World Congress on 23rd September 2026. Organised by the WPA Action Plan Work Group on Digital Mental Health, it will focus on the practical implementation of digital psychiatry in daily clinical practice and its role in promoting equitable outcomes. During the course, participants will explore the role of digital health technologies, particularly artificial intelligence and telepsychiatry, in enhancing the availability, accessibility, and equity of psychiatric treatment and care across diverse populations and regions.
You
can find the course outline here.
If you would like more information on the symposium, please contact Prof. Wolfgang Gaebel.
View the Working Group List of Publications
