Proposed by the EPA Section on TeleMental Health -The 21st century has witnessed a fast-paced revolution in information technologies, that in turn contributed to the spread of new complementary diagnostic and clinical tools for mental health, which are likely to become a standard of practice in the near future, especially for younger generations of psychiatrists. The symposium will provide an introduction on the main past and contemporary issues related to the diagnostic process in psychiatry and innovative digital approaches to psychiatric diagnosis will be presented. In detail, Neuroanalysis represents a novel integrative approach, based on a patient-interactive digital platform which couples EEG-based imaging data with machine-learning algorithms to measure brain network activity in psychiatric diseases. Digital Phenotyping takes advantage on biosensors and allows to analyze several digital parameters (individual level of activity, GPS location, use of voice/speech, use of social media and human-computer interactions) in real time. Its clinical potential in relation to monitoring the transition from at-risk conditions to initial stages of mental illnesses, in providing accounts of early signs of relapse, and in promoting recovery will be addressed. Finally, the use of automated technologies to perform innovative clinical assessments will be reviewed, with specific reference to the identification of subjects at high risk for neurodevelopmental disorders. Digital tools today represent potentially cost- and time-effective tools for clinical providers to help support early detection and diagnosis of psychiatric disorders and their potentials as well as their caveats for clinical practice will be thoroughly discussed.

The social, economic and scientific changes occurred in the recent years have had, and are still having, a significant impact on psychiatric practice and on the clinical presentation of many mental disorders. Some traditional syndromes seem to be disappeared, such as catatonia, while new forms of mental health problems are coming to psychiatric consultation. Despite these significant changes, psychiatry as a profession still bases its education, research and clinical practice on a knowledge developed over the last two centuries. Social changes are modifying the role of psychiatrists and of mental health professionals in the modern society and therefore there is the need to re-think the agenda for educational needs of the future generation of psychiatrists. In this workshop, speakers will discuss the main unmet needs in education in psychiatry from different perspectives, from psychopharmacology to social psychiatry, with a specific focus on the impact of the pandemic on the educational needs of early career psychiatrists.