JMIR J Med Internet Res Journal of Medical Internet Research 1438-8871 JMIR Publications Toronto, Canada v27i1e69798 39832363 10.2196/69798 Letter to the Editor Letter to the Editor Authors’ Reply: Japan's Telepsychiatry Dissemination: Current Status and Challenges Leung Tiffany Beri Libby Sugawara Yuka MD, PhD 1 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3022-1096 Hirakawa Yosuke MD, PhD 1 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9238-650X Iwagami Masao MSc, MD, PhD 2 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7079-0640 Kuroki Haruo MD, PhD 3 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9846-3406 Mitani Shuhei MD 1 https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4199-6525 Inagaki Ataru MD, PhD 4 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4286-5758 Ohashi Hiroki MD 5 https://orcid.org/0009-0004-8332-1957 Kubota Mitsuru MD, PhD 6 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5395-8226 Koike Soichi MD, PhD 7 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6516-7333 Wakimizu Rie PhD 8 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2464-6028 Nangaku Masaomi MD, PhD 1
Division of Nephrology and Endocrinology The University of Tokyo 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku Tokyo, 113-8655 Japan 81 3 3815 5411 mnangaku@m.u-tokyo.ac.jp
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7401-2934 Division of Nephrology and Endocrinology The University of Tokyo Tokyo Japan Department of Health Services Research Institute of Medicine University of Tsukuba Ibaraki Japan Clinic Pauroom Tokyo Japan Department of Education College of Education, Psychology and Human Studies Aoyama Gakuin University Tokyo Japan TAMA Family Clinic Tokyo Japan Department of General Pediatrics and Interdisciplinary Medicine National Center for Child Health and Development Tokyo Japan Division of Health Policy and Management Center for Community Medicine Jichi Medical University Tochigi Japan Department of Child Health and Development Nursing Institute of Medicine University of Tsukuba Ibaraki Japan Corresponding Author: Masaomi Nangaku mnangaku@m.u-tokyo.ac.jp 2025 20 1 2025 27 e69798 9 12 2024 11 12 2024 ©Yuka Sugawara, Yosuke Hirakawa, Masao Iwagami, Haruo Kuroki, Shuhei Mitani, Ataru Inagaki, Hiroki Ohashi, Mitsuru Kubota, Soichi Koike, Rie Wakimizu, Masaomi Nangaku. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 20.01.2025. 2025

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (ISSN 1438-8871), is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

 http://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e22849/ https://www.jmir.org/2024/1/e64159/ Introduction

We thank the authors for their knowledgeable comments [1] on our study [2]. Our results suggest that although telemedicine is not widely used in the field of psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine, it is desired by the patient population receiving medical care. Deregulation of the restriction and setting higher reimbursement rates are considered important, but evidence is needed for this to happen. We believe that the results recently presented by Dr Kishimoto and colleagues [3] are very important, and the fact that they show that telemedicine in this field is not inferior to face-to-face care is good information not only for health care providers and the patient population, but also for government agencies as a resource for developing policy. This kind of evidence needs to be accumulated, and more research on telemedicine is needed in the future.

None declared.

 Kinoshita S Kishimoto T Japan's Telepsychiatry Dissemination: Current Status and Challenges J Med Internet Res 2024 e22849 10.2196/22849 Sugawara Y Hirakawa Y Iwagami M Kuroki H Mitani S Inagaki A Ohashi H Kubota M Koike Soichi Wakimizu Rie Nangaku Masaomi Issues in the adoption of online medical care: cross-sectional questionnaire survey J Med Internet Res 2024 12 01 26 e64159 10.2196/64159 39486019 v26i1e64159 PMC11568393 Kishimoto T Kinoshita S Kitazawa M Hishimoto A Asami T Suda A Bun S Kikuchi T Sado M Takamiya Akihiro Mimura Masaru Sato Yasunori Takemura Ryo Nagashima Kengo Nakamae Takashi Abe Yoshinari Kanazawa Tetsufumi Kawabata Yasuo Tomita Hiroaki Abe Koichi Hongo Seiji Kimura Hiroshi Sato Aiko Kida Hisashi Sakuma Kei Funayama Michitaka Sugiyama Naoya Hino Kousuke Amagai Toru Takamiya Maki Kodama Hideyuki Goto Kenichi Fujiwara Shuichiro Kaiya Hisanobu Nagao Kiichiro Live two-way video versus face-to-face treatment for depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder: A 24-week randomized controlled trial Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 2024 04 78 4 220 228 10.1111/pcn.13618 38102849