New Digital Health App, Kena Health is Improving Access to Mental Health Services Across South Africa
The 1st of July marks the start of Mental Illness Awareness Month in South Africa. This comes at a crucial time when symptoms of anxiety and depression, exacerbated by financial strain as inflation on basic goods and fuel spiral. Rolling power blackouts caused by load shedding add to the stresses that South Africans face, as they try to navigate the demands of running businesses and households in the context of interrupted power supply.
Recent findings of a UNICEF South Africa U-Report poll highlight this reality, with some 65 per cent of young people stating that they had some form of a mental health issue but did not seek help. Unpacking and addressing the barriers to seeking help is critical.
Digital mental health solutions are increasingly helping to address the barriers to seeking mental health care. Kena Health is one such service that dramatically improves access to mental health professionals through a private, affordable and remote access service. The app allows South Africans to chat to a doctor, nurse or mental health professional. Since Kena Health App launched in March 2022, about 25% of its consultations have been for Mental Health issues related to Depression, Anxiety, and Stress.
The solution begins with awareness
The single biggest barrier to getting help is knowing that there’s a problem. Mental health is seldom taught or addressed in schools and there’s a general low level of awareness of the symptoms of different mental health conditions. People who need mental health help often misidentify symptoms or their causes and so struggle with them for months or years, excusing them or believing that they’re caused by something else. This is exacerbated by the cultural stigma that often surrounds mental illness.
One of the few silver linings of the pandemic has been that more people have realised that they’re not alone in experiencing depression, anxiety, grief, trauma and other mental health conditions – and have become more open to talking about their experiences. At the same time, the growing availability of app-based counselling services like Kena Health has also made accessing mental health help easier than ever.
How Kena Health is improving access
It won’t come as a surprise to learn that South Africa doesn’t have enough people working in mental health professions to serve its population. What might come as a surprise, however, is the scale of the shortage. Take psychiatrists as an example: they are fundamental to correctly diagnosing and prescribing the correct medication for mental health conditions, yet according to data from South African Society of Psychiatrists, there are only 1.52 psychiatrists per 100 000 people in the country, and they’re mostly concentrated in just two provinces – Gauteng and the Western Cape. This compares to more than 30 per 100 000 for some countries in Europe – almost 20 times more. We also see a similar shortage in psychologists and mental health counselors. The result is long wait lists, high prices and lack of access in small and rural communities.
Kena Health overcomes this challenge by allowing people to have mental health consultations remotely. By giving people easy access to counsellors outside of their area while at the same time lowering the cost, Kena Health is making counselling affordable for significantly more people.
One of the key ways Kena Health is realising this is through a process that allows an entire mental health counselling session to be done over text, while maintaining completely private. In fact, over 50% of Kena Health’s mental health consultations have been done using text only, making it the most popular option, followed by voice calls, then video calls.
To further assist people seeking help, Kena Health offers its first three consultations for free, charging a nominal fee thereafter. This translates to usage on the app, with a third of all consultations being repeat consults, of which at least a quarter are mental health related. Furthermore, Kena Health’s service runs uninterrupted during load shedding periods, another uniquely South African barrier to access. This is not only an inconvenience to daily life activities, but it can also further impact access to mental health care.
Improving access and helping people feel more comfortable, private and secure when seeking help contributes to greater education and understanding – improving awareness of mental health issues and reducing stigma. By changing how we access services, app-based care is one of the biggest drivers of change in our social attitude towards mental health.
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