Introduction
According to the statistics of the World Health Organization (WHO), psychological problems have caused 12 % of diseases worldwide, many of whom will not access professional mental health services or receive psychological support. Access to mental health care is limited not only by the stigma [1] but also by issues of accessibility and continuity, including the limitations of time, place [2], and socioeconomic factors [3]. As the e-mental health provides more possibilities for patients with mental illness [4], online counseling, as the interaction between users and mental health professionals through computer-mediated communication technology [5], can not only help users breakthrough structural barriers such as time and place to obtain psychological support from professionals [2] but also provide privacy and emotional security environment to promote the effectiveness of communication [6]. With the awakening of health awareness, increasingly more people are willing to seek psychological support through online psychological counseling but have a low preference to convert will into behavior [7]. However, web-based counseling methods have obvious advantages in improving the availability and continuity of services, which are conducive to psychological counselors' rapid and effective determination of and response to patients' needs [2]. Therefore, it is a major issue to improve the willingness and behavior of patients with mental illness to participate in online counseling.
At present, online psychological counseling service platforms mainly provide four counseling methods: text, telephone, video, and face-to-face consultation. Due to the specific strengths and limitations of different counseling methods, different counseling effects will be produced for users with different psychological problems [[8], [9], [10]]. However, most of the existing studies focus on one of the online psychological counseling methods. Small sample data have been collected through interviews with people of specific age groups, especially adolescents, for statistical analysis [1,[11], [12], [13], [14]]. Therefore, it is an important research issue to analyze the service experience and feedback content comprehensively and on multiple levels through the content generated by online psychological consultation patients to improve the effectiveness of different online consultation methods and achieve the optimal consultation effect.
Mental health is attracting increasing attention in China [15]. Approximately one out of every eight people is troubled by psychological problems [16]. In foreign countries such as the United States, online integrated psychological service platforms such as GoodTherapy and BetterHelp provide qualified service personnel and rich mental health resources for people all over the world [17]. Due to China’s psychological counseling industry started relatively late, although many outstanding companies have emerged in recent years [18], people's willingness, thoughts, and behaviors to seek professional help through the Internet is yet to be determined [15]. Therefore, the aim of the study is to examine the reviews from users who have received online psychological counseling services to better understand the key factors that affect the effectiveness of different online psychological counseling methods, as well as the counseling method preferences of users with different psychological problems.
This paper is organized as following. The next section reviews China's mental health services and studies of different online psychological counseling methods. In the Methods section we propose our research framework and methodology. Then, we report our data collection and analysis results in Section 4. Finally, in Section 5 we provide practical guidance to consult patients and psychological consultants based on the research results and discussing future research suggestions.