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The Use of Mobile Phones for Frontline Health-Care Workers to Manage Depression

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Innovations in Global Mental Health

Abstract

Common mental disorders, especially depression, have caused great disease burden all over the world. The treatment gap is huge especially in low- and middle-income countries. In order to narrow the gap, different innovative treatment methods are being explored. With the rapid development of mobile technology, the adoption of mobile phones in health care (mHealth) is one such innovative method that has been gaining popularity. There are different ways of mobile-based interventions, including engaging patients in treatment, facilitating the treatment process, and sustaining gains after treatment has ended. There is emerging research about the feasibility and efficacy of mHealth interventions for treating common mental disorders. Two studies conducted in high-income countries and two studies conducted in low- and middle- income countries are included in this chapter to provide some evidence for mHealth treatment for mental illness. Although mobile phones can provide many benefits to both patients and health care workers, some ethical issues should be considered, and several barriers and limitations, especially in low- and middle- income countries, also need to be considered. To solve these key issues, some necessary steps need to be taken in the future. Those steps include but are not limited to multidisciplinary collaborations, improving usability, improving security, and gathering more evidence. Overall, it is recommended that frontline health care workers should integrate mobile phones into their practice to manage depression more effectively, but they should also keep the ethical issues in mind and be aware that this approach still needs continuous evaluation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Africa Mental Health Research and Training Foundation, Nairobi, Kenya

    Christine W. Musyimi, Victoria N. Mutiso & David Ndetei

  2. Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Yihuan Lai

  3. University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

    David Ndetei

Authors
  1. Christine W. Musyimi
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  2. Yihuan Lai
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  3. Victoria N. Mutiso
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  4. David Ndetei
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Correspondence to Christine W. Musyimi .

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  1. Department of Psychiatry, Center for Health, Culture and Society, George Washington University, Nashville, Washington, TN, USA

    Samuel O. Okpaku

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Musyimi, C.W., Lai, Y., Mutiso, V.N., Ndetei, D. (2020). The Use of Mobile Phones for Frontline Health-Care Workers to Manage Depression. In: Okpaku, S. (eds) Innovations in Global Mental Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70134-9_12-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70134-9_12-1

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