Recognising early identification as the key to addressing rising mental health cases, the PEMA Secretariat is expanding its reach. An online system has been developed to screen students. The system, currently being rolled out in schools, enhances diagnosis and treatment by improving referral.
The web-based Health and Wellbeing Screening System can be accessed by school counsellors, clinical counsellors, and psychiatrists.
It is a questionnaire-based system to assess mental health. The school counsellors feed the data into the system, which is accessed by clinical counsellors and other mental health professionals to identify the conditions and offer treatments accordingly.
To screen students, the PEMA Secretariat has already trained school counsellors across the country.
In its pilot phase, the system had screened 22,000 Gyalsuups.
Dasho Dechen Wangmo, the Head of the PEMA Secretariat, said the tool-based system can perform preliminary screening for anxiety, depression, adverse childhood experiences, and substance use.
“In the first phase, we are focusing on screening class 10 and class 12 students, about 20,000 children will be used, and this tool will give us an opportunity to identify people who are suffering in silence.”
After screening, clinical counsellors and psychiatrists provide intervention to those in need.
The PEMA Secretariat plans to upgrade the system into a mobile application system to make it more accessible to the public, so that individuals are aware of their mental health status.
“Because there is a lot of stigma and discrimination when it comes to mental health, people can do basic screening and assessment on an application, and then we are also looking at how we can integrate AI into our main system,” said Dasho Dechen Wangmo.
She added that the plan is to use an AI-powered chatbot to communicate with the users, even in the Dzongkha language.
During the International Conference on Medical and Health Sciences, the PEMA Secretariat presented that over 19,000 people in the country are estimated to have moderate or moderately severe depression, with over 14,000 estimated to have moderate to severe anxiety.
According to the Head of PEMA Secretariat, the system will ensure efficient use of the country’s limited mental health professionals. Bhutan currently has one psychiatrist for 200,000 plus individuals.
Singye Dema & Namgay Wangdi
Edited by Phub Gyem
