Health professionals’ sentiments towards implemented information technologies in psychiatric hospitals: a text-mining analysis

Abstract

Background: Psychiatric hospitals are increasingly being digitalised. Digitalisation often requires changes at work for health professionals. A positive attitude from health professionals towards technology is crucial for a successful and sustainable digital transformation at work. Nevertheless, insufficient attention is being paid to the health professionals’ sentiments towards technology. Objective: This study aims to identify the implemented technologies in psychiatric hospitals and to describe the health professionals’ sentiments towards these implemented technologies. Methods: A text-mining analysis of semi-structured interviews with nurses, physicians and psychologists was conducted. The analysis comprised word frequencies and sentiment analyses. For the sentiment analyses, the SentimentWortschatz dataset was used. The sentiments ranged from -1 (strongly negative sentiment) to 1 (strongly positive sentiment). Results: In total, 20 health professionals (nurses, physicians and psychologists) participated in the study. When asked about the technologies they used, the participating health professionals mainly referred to the computer, email, phone and electronic health record. Overall, 4% of the words in the transcripts were positive or negative sentiments. Of all words that express a sentiment, 73% were positive. The discussed technologies were associated with positive and negative sentiments. However, of all sentences that described technology at the workplace, 69.4% were negative. Conclusions: The participating health professionals mentioned a limited number of technologies at work. The sentiments towards technologies were mostly negative. The way in which technologies are implemented and the lack of health professionals’ involvement seem to be reasons for the negative sentiments.