Telepsychiatry is increasingly being used in many parts of the world. We performed a systematic review of the literature on the use of telepsychiatry in acute treatment settings using MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO from inception to June 2013 using the following key words: acute telepsychiatry, teleconsultation, teleconferencing, telemedicine, emergency telepsychiatry, and e-mental health. Only articles in English were included. All study abstracts were reviewed by both authors independently to assess whether the topic of the paper was relevant to the review. References were selected independently until no new papers were found. If there was a disagreement, a discussion between the authors took place. A leading expert in this field was contacted to check for gray literature. The review included 23 papers. No meta-analyses or systematic reviews were found. The main results are (1) that patients have a positive attitude toward the technology and show a high level of satisfaction with telepsychiatry, (2) that the use of telepsychiatry is correlated with decreased admissions to psychiatric inpatient units, (3) that the quality of clinical interaction in telepsychiatry is similar to that in face-to-face care, and (4) that telepsychiatry seems to be cost effective. The use of telepsychiatry seems to be a viable and relatively inexpensive option for use in places where access to emergency services is difficult.

Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is a well-recognised psychotherapeutic intervention for the treatment of a number of psychiatric conditions such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder.1 Furthermore, CBT techniques have proven to be efficacious in targeting specific conditions such as chronic delusions and hallucinations in schizophrenia. Lord Layard examined the need for psychological treatments in the UK and speculated that there will be a demand to train 5000 more psychological therapists by 2013, mostly in CBT.