This study was conducted to examine how health counselling via electronic m
ail (e-mail health counselling) was used in the workplace. The definition o
f health counselling employed in this study was 'any assistance to an indiv
idual seeking to solve any health problem'. A total of 2119 health counseli
ngs conducted at a Japanese company's head office (700 employees) in 1997 a
nd 1998 was used for the analysis, which compared four health counselling m
ethods: e-mail, face-to-face, telephone and ordinary mail. This study disti
nguished four main characteristics of e-mail health counselling. First, the
most and second most frequently used counselling methods were face-to-face
and telephone counselling, at 70 and 15%, respectively, with e-mail health
counselling ranked third at 13%. e-mail counselling was the second most fr
equently used method for employees in their 20s and 30s, while it ranked th
ird among those over 40. Only 6% of employees in their 50s used e-mail coun
selling. Secondly, the proportion of mental health issues treated via e-mai
l counselling was significantly higher, at 26%, than for other counselling
methods, which was at or below 10% for each of the other methods. Thirty-tw
o per cent of all mental health counselling was conducted via e-mail. Third
ly, compared with face-to-face counselling, e-mail counselling dealt with m
ore health issues related to primary prevention than with those related to
secondary or tertiary prevention. Fourthly, compared with face-to-face coun
selling, e-mail counselling dealt more with health issues of third parties.
These results suggest that e-mail health counselling may be useful in reac
hing people other than those targeted by the remaining counselling methods.