Connected health avenues for child and adolescent mental health service: a case study on the digitization of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosis and treatment
| dc.contributor.advisor | Adam, Frederic | |
| dc.contributor.advisor | Murray, Deirdre M. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Harris, Richard | en |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-05-19T11:29:21Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-05-19T11:29:21Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025-12-31 | |
| dc.date.submitted | 2025-12-31 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Ireland are struggling to meet the demands of their service. Public CAMHS services in Ireland deal with individuals under the age of 18 struggling with mental health conditions, both acute and chronic, and serve the needs of those who require diagnosis and treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Over the last number of years, reports have emerged highlighting deficiencies within the service and subsequently have made recommendations on how to improve the services operations. These include the recommendation to implement health information systems (HIS) within the service. This thesis explores avenues for connected health systems integration into the service through the lens of ADHD diagnosis and treatment, in line with these recommendations. Connected health systems have been proven to support clinical decision making, reduce inequalities in the provision of healthcare, and provide greater clinical oversight and governance. These systems present an opportunity to streamline the provision of ADHD care within the CAMHS and ultimately assist in the management of demands for the service. This thesis has primarily leveraged the design science research methodology (DSRM) to produce tangible artifacts that can be used to both identify the requirements for a connected health application to support ADHD diagnosis and treatment in CAMHS, and to produce a proof-of-concept mobile application design to service CAMHS clinicians and service users. Findings of this thesis include the presentation of an integrated patient journey map artifact that presents several representative personas that progress through the Dundee ADHD Clinical Care Pathway, identified in reports as the preferred care pathway for ADHD diagnosis and treatment. The goal of which is to visually represent the pathway to a multidisciplinary team of connected health researchers, to facilitate a shared understanding of the clinical setting and engage team members in conversation around key requirements of a potential connected health intervention. This thesis also identifies several key risks and benefits associated with the use of connected health systems within a CAMHS context. Benefits identified include increased access to relevant clinical information, reduced risk of misplaced records, and increased compliance with format requirements. Risks identified include a lack of personal connection to patients when leveraging telemedicine, the risk of cyber security breaches resulting in the inappropriate access of information, and the inability to access patients to make a physical intervention when using remote monitoring. This thesis also produces a proof-of-concept mobile application, connected child and adolescent mental health services (C-CAMHS), leveraging a dual platform low code development approach that attempts to both design an appropriate artifact which can be leveraged in clinical testing, while also demonstrating the viability of a dual platform low code development approach in the creation of healthcare research applications. The totality of this thesis produces a roadmap for the implementation of a connected health application in the contacts of a CAHMS, leveraging novel development techniques grounded in proven information systems research methodologies. Future research is targeted towards the clinical testing of the C-CAMHS artifact to identify its applicability in a clinical setting and identifying areas for further improvement and implementations. | en |
| dc.description.status | Not peer reviewed | en |
| dc.description.version | Accepted Version | en |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | en |
| dc.identifier.citation | Harris, R. 2025. Connected health avenues for child and adolescent mental health service: a case study on the digitization of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosis and treatment. PhD Thesis, University College Cork. | |
| dc.identifier.endpage | 239 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10468/18782 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en |
| dc.publisher | University College Cork | en |
| dc.rights | © 2025, Richard Harris. | |
| dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ | |
| dc.subject | Connected health | |
| dc.subject | ADHD | |
| dc.subject | Health information systems | |
| dc.subject | Design science | |
| dc.subject | CAMHS | |
| dc.title | Connected health avenues for child and adolescent mental health service: a case study on the digitization of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosis and treatment | |
| dc.type | Doctoral thesis | en |
| dc.type.qualificationlevel | Doctoral | en |
| dc.type.qualificationname | PhD - Doctor of Philosophy | en |
