Attitudes of Mental Health Service Users Toward Storage and Use of Electronic Health Records.

Objective: Electronic health records (EHRs) are used for both clinical practice and research. Because mental health service users' views are underrepresented in perspectives on EHR use, the authors examined service users' awareness, attitudes, and opinions about EHR data storage and sharing.

Methods: A mixed-methods, cross-sectional design was used to examine attitudes of 253 Norwegian mental health service users who were recruited online to complete a quantitative and qualitative (free-text) survey about EHR utilization.

Results: Most participants were aware that EHRs were stored (95%) and shared (58%). Most thought that patients benefited from EHR storage (84%), trusted authorities with EHR sharing (71%), were willing to share their EHRs to help others (75%), felt they benefited from EHR sharing (75%), and thought EHR sharing was ethical for health care and research (71%). Fewer were aware of EHR sharing for research (36%), and 62% were aware that shared data were anonymized. Of the participants, 69% recognized privacy risks associated with sharing. Lack of transparency and skepticism about anonymization and misuse of EHR data were concerns and perceived risks. Mental health service users thought that EHRs should be shared for policy development (81%), education and training (85%), improving care quality (89%), research (91%), and clinical decision support (81%).

Conclusions: Participants were aware of and supported EHR sharing for research and clinical care. They supported sharing to help others and were willing to fully participate in clinical care and research, as well as to share EHR information for their own care, research, and the care of others.