Telepsychiatry and cultural barriers in Korea

Abstract

This research was performed in order to empirically prove that telepsychiatry can result in overcoming of the Confucian cultural barrier which discouraged Korean patients from seeking psychiatric care. The Confucian culture of Korea forces its members to observe absolute conformity to the social norm. In this kind of culture it is very hard to admit one's mental illness and to seek medical help. Thus telepsychiatry might be a good alternative to face-to-face meeting-based psychiatry especially in culturally inhibitive places such as Korea. We conducted a telepsychiatry experiment using Instant Messenger with 93 volunteers who had an experience of seeing a psychiatrist in person. The result shows that people tend to think that telepsychiatry allowed them to break out of the Confucian cultural protocol which put heavy emphasis on avoiding any irregular thought.