Determinants of e-Mental Health Use During COVID-19: Cross-sectional Canadian Study

Abstract

Background: Access to mental health treatment across Canada remains a challenge, with many reporting unmet care needs. National and provincial e-Mental health (eMH) programs have been developed over the past decade across Canada, with many more emerging during COVID-19 in an attempt to reduce barriers related to geography, isolation, transportation, physical disability, and availability. Objective: The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with the utilization of eMH services across Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic using Andersen and Newman's framework of health service utilization. Methods: This study used data gathered from the 2021 Canadian Digital Health Survey, a cross-sectional, web-based survey of 12,052 Canadians aged 16 years and older with internet access. Bivariate associations between the use of eMH services and health service utilization factors (predisposing, enabling, illness level) of survey respondents were assessed using χ2 tests for categorical variables and t tests for the continuous variable. Logistic regression was used to predict the probability of using eMH services given the respondents' predisposing, enabling, and illness-level factors while adjusting for respondents' age and gender. Results: The proportion of eMH service users among survey respondents was small (883/12,052, 7.33%). Results from the logistic regression suggest that users of eMH services were likely to be those with regular family physician access (odds ratio [OR] 1.57, P = .02), living in nonrural communities (OR 1.08, P < .001), having undergraduate (OR 1.40, P = .001) or postgraduate (OR 1.48, P = .003) education, and being eHealth literate (OR 1.05, P < .001). Those with lower eMH usage were less likely to speak English at home (OR 0.06, P < .001). Conclusions: Our study provides empirical evidence on the impact of individual health utilization factors on the use of eMH among Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the opportunities and promise of eMH services in increasing access to care, future digital interventions should both tailor themselves toward users of these services and consider awareness campaigns to reach nonusers. Future research should also focus on understanding the reasons behind the use and nonuse of eMH services.