Our weblog & articles get comfortable
and have a read

by Dr. Alison Darcy

When I first started using the internet as a tool for psychological research in the field of eating disorders in 2002, there was wide-spread skepticism around the viability of this approach to scientific investigation.  By the time my two-year research project came to be evaluated in 2004, we still had no-where to turn in terms of an Irish academic appropriately qualified in both fields - internet research and eating disorders.  Concerned about the skepticism that many academics and psychologists had ... Continue reading

by Dr. Alison Darcy

Online support groups are a popular form of support service delivery now common on the Internet. They can be in either asynchronous (e.g. newsgroups, bulletin boards) or synchronous (e.g. chat rooms) form. Surveys conducted both in the US and Ireland show that a substantial proportion of Internet users access the Internet for health reasons. In 2002, 80% of American Internet users (55% of all adults) accessed the web for health information. And in 2000, 4.9 million American Internet users participated ... Continue reading

by Dr. Alison Darcy

The terms support group, self-help group and mutual-help group all identify a similar group formation and the terms are used interchangeably. A group of this type consists of people who come together seeking and offering help and support. Participants share a common problem, and the group is usually initiated by a citizen or user (Adamsen, 2002). Participation costs its members little or nothing and the collective wisdom is born out of the shared experience of members rather than the professional ... Continue reading

by Dr. Alison Darcy

Facilitating the move to providing community care, service providers and clinicians have capitalised on recent technological advancements. The Internet has dramatically impacted on the way people communicate, learn, and share information, and this change has occurred rapidly. Motivated by the need to bridge the gap between inpatient and outpatient care, or more practically to overcome common hurdles related to geographical location, and by the cost-effective nature of such routes, the needs of all levels of health care systems are being ... Continue reading

by Dr. Alison Darcy

The favoured model of mental-health service delivery in the UK is now one of stepped care. Complimenting a move to community care, self-help interventions (manualised versions of evidence-based treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapies; CBT) are playing an important role in the treatment of a range of mental health issues. As the first step in a stepped-care approach, the service user is provided with, or they themselves seek out, a self-directed intervention. More intensive intervention can be offered in the ... Continue reading