Call for Papers for Special Issue on "Digital Therapeutics and Digital Adversity"

The Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JKACAP) calls for papers related to “Digital therapeutics and digital adversity” (Section Editor: Eunjoo Kim, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea).

Digital health technologies, such as smartphone apps, virtual reality, chatbots, and social media- have gained increasing attention as accessible and scalable mental health interventions that can replace or augment traditional care, especially during the COVID pandemic period. The research and clinical evidence for the use of these new technological approaches across different mental health contexts is mounting, covering their efficacy in self-management of psychological well-being, early intervention, and clinical management of long-term psychiatric conditions, such as major depression; anxiety, bipolar and psychotic disorders; and eating and substance use disorders—as well as in psychiatric disorders in child and adolescents.

Along with the opportunities that digital technology brings, there are also risks and harms related to the digital media usage. As the amount of time children and adolescents spend on digital media continues to increase considerably, there are growing concerns about the impact of this change on adolescents' mental health and well-being. Some websites and apps may pose risks to children's mental health, such as exacerbating depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidality, or anorexia. Cyberbullying, sexual misbehavior and exploitation of minors online, online gambling, privacy and security issues, and more are becoming serious social issues. Partly because of fears that there’s a link between these trends, governments around the world are under pressure to do more to regulate technology companies to remove illegal content from their websites.

The goal of this Special Issue is to invite research articles that deal with challenging issues on all aspects pertinent to “Digital Therapeutics and Digital Adversity” to expand our knowledge on these important issues. Topics, such as current state of digital media use among children and adolescents, its impact on their development, and the relationship between digital media use and mental health and well-being, how smartphones, virtual reality and metaverse present new opportunities for management of mental health, and legal or ethical considerations surrounding these innovations to facilitate their adoption and use in mental health care systems, diverse perspectives from different disciplines, implications for improving future research and for supporting adolescents' mental health in the digital age all will be welcomed.

Submission of original article and literature reviews are welcomed to this issue. We are always open to submissions by scholars from worldwide regions and communities. We would like to publish this issue on October, 2023.

When submitting your manuscript please select the article type “Special Article." Then you can find the checkbox "Digital Therapeutics and Digital Adversity." Please submit your manuscript no later than 15 July 2023.

Please ensure you read the Guide for Authors before writing your manuscript. The Guide for Authors and link to submit your manuscript is available on the Journal’s homepage at: https://www.jkacap.org/authors/sub01.html

Inquiries, including questions about appropriate topics, may be sent electronically to Jae Hyun Yoo, jayyoo84@gmail.com or the editorial office at jkacap2019@gmail.com.