Authors’ Reply: Japan's Telepsychiatry Dissemination: Current Status and Challenges

doi:10.2196/69798

Letter to the Editor

¹Division of Nephrology and Endocrinology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

²Department of Health Services Research, Institute of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

³Clinic Pauroom, Tokyo, Japan

⁴Department of Education, College of Education, Psychology and Human Studies, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan

⁵TAMA Family Clinic, Tokyo, Japan

⁶Department of General Pediatrics and Interdisciplinary Medicine, National Center for Child Health and Development, Tokyo, Japan

⁷Division of Health Policy and Management, Center for Community Medicine, Jichi Medical University, Tochigi, Japan

⁸Department of Child Health and Development Nursing, Institute of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Corresponding Author:

Masaomi Nangaku, MD, PhD

Division of Nephrology and Endocrinology

The University of Tokyo

7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku

Tokyo, 113-8655

Japan

Phone: 81 3 3815 5411

Email: mnangaku@m.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Related ArticlesComment on: http://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e22849/
Comment on: https://www.jmir.org/2024/1/e64159/

J Med Internet Res 2025;27:e69798

doi:10.2196/69798

We thank the authors for their knowledgeable comments [1] on our study [2]. Our results suggest that although telemedicine is not widely used in the field of psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine, it is desired by the patient population receiving medical care. Deregulation of the restriction and setting higher reimbursement rates are considered important, but evidence is needed for this to happen. We believe that the results recently presented by Dr Kishimoto and colleagues [3] are very important, and the fact that they show that telemedicine in this field is not inferior to face-to-face care is good information not only for health care providers and the patient population, but also for government agencies as a resource for developing policy. This kind of evidence needs to be accumulated, and more research on telemedicine is needed in the future.

Conflicts of Interest

None declared.

Kinoshita S, Kishimoto T. Japan's Telepsychiatry Dissemination: Current Status and Challenges. J Med Internet Res. 2024:e22849. [CrossRef]
Sugawara Y, Hirakawa Y, Iwagami M, Kuroki H, Mitani S, Inagaki A, et al. Issues in the adoption of online medical care: cross-sectional questionnaire survey. J Med Internet Res. Dec 01, 2024;26:e64159. [FREE Full text] [CrossRef] [Medline]
Kishimoto T, Kinoshita S, Kitazawa M, Hishimoto A, Asami T, Suda A, et al. Live two-way video versus face-to-face treatment for depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder: A 24-week randomized controlled trial. Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. Apr 2024;78(4):220-228. [CrossRef] [Medline]

Edited by T Leung, L Beri; This is a non–peer-reviewed article. submitted 09.12.24; accepted 11.12.24; published 20.01.25.

©Yuka Sugawara, Yosuke Hirakawa, Masao Iwagami, Haruo Kuroki, Shuhei Mitani, Ataru Inagaki, Hiroki Ohashi, Mitsuru Kubota, Soichi Koike, Rie Wakimizu, Masaomi Nangaku. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 20.01.2025.

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Authors’ Reply: Japan's Telepsychiatry Dissemination: Current Status and Challenges