A Telepsychiatry Domain Ontology Applied to Healthcare Information Systems

Mental illness has always been target of debate and criticism by the society (modern or ancient). Several problems and challenges regarding Psychiatry, Telepsychiatry specifically are found in literature. The lack of information and the fear of the unknown have long been seen as a barrier for people with mental illness as well as all those involved in the process, such as family and the medical team. In the past, the lack of knowledge led the society to adopt harsh punishment for the patients, under the pretext that the same were possessed by some supernatural force. In this context, the lack of a public, formal and standardized model regarding any sort of information about this field was and remains as the central problem. Therefore, this paper proposes the OntoPsic, a domain-ontology for psychiatry applied to Healthcare Information System to define a common vocabulary about mental illness and Telepsychiatry. Besides relying on this base of knowledge to assist all involved in the treatment of mental disorders, this article also describes the OntoConsult, a system for the deduction of facts to support the decision making. In order to motivate the use of OntoPsic, the article reviews some applications and some practical results with the ontology.