Co-Designing M-Healer: Supporting Lay Practitioner Mental Health Workers in Ghana
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Date
2021
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer
Abstract
. Mental health is a vast problem around the globe and is one
of the key population health issues in the world today. At any given time,
up to 6.8% of the world’s population suffers from a serious mental illness
(SMI) such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The impacts of SMI on
a population are especially challenging in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). Mobile healthcare application research is a growing area
of research aiming to ameliorate these challenging impacts. In Ghana,
a LMIC in West Africa, mental healthcare systems are severely under resourced and people with SMI often receive care from lay practitioners
such as traditional and faith healers rather than trained mental health
clinicians. These challenges exist alongside developed wireless infrastructure. In these contexts, mobile applications can substantially increase
access to health information. This is the basis for our work developing a mobile health (mHealth) application to support mental health lay
practitioners in Ghana. We describe the ways that our principled design
research practice is intersecting with local faith-based practices, vernacular expertise and values, and the practicalities of technology adoption
in Ghana.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Mobile health, Mental health, Ghana