ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Digital Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1598574
Analysis of psychiatrists' Internet service patterns: a cross-sectional study from China's largest online mental health platform
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Psychiatry, School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
- 2Department of Psychiatry, Chaohu Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China
- 3Haoxinqing Health Industry Group Co., Ltd., Beijing, China
- 4Anhui Psychiatric Center, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Haoxinqing, China's largest online mental health platform, facilitates digital psychological care delivery. This study aims to describe the demographics and medical service data of doctors on the Haoxinqing platform and investigate their associations.The study analyzed the demographic information and medical service data of 11,333 registered physician users on the Haoxinqing platform over a 5-year period.Result: Among registered physicians, 87.0% were from secondary or tertiary hospitals and were concentrated in eastern provinces (e.g., Guangdong: 918). Female physicians had a lower proportion in senior titles (chief physicians: 19.0% vs. 20.0% for males), although the chi-square analysis indicated a weak association between gender and professional title (Cramer's V = 0.051, P < 0.001). Text and image consultations dominate (82.1%). Professional titles significantly impacted service volume: chief physicians had 3.85 times more patients (IRR = 3.85,.00]) and prescribed 4.16 times more medications (IRR = 4.16,) than residents (P < 0.001). Negative binomial regression showed that male physicians had 30% fewer patients than females (IRR = 0.70, 95% CI [0.58-0.85], P < 0.001), but the effect size for the association between gender and consultation methods was low (Cramer's V = 0.036).Based on cross-sectional data from China's largest online mental health platform, this study revealed that online services, while supplementing offline medical care, are still influenced by traditional medical hierarchy. Patients' trust in senior physicians and gendered communication norms are critical determinants affecting resource allocation patterns on digital platforms.
Keywords: eHealth, Internet hospital, online mental health care services, Digital Health, mHealth
Received: 23 Mar 2025; Accepted: 02 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xu, Ni, Wu, Xu, Song, Yuan and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kai Zhang, Department of Psychiatry, Chaohu Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.