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Virtual tool to advance efforts to curb mental health gaps in Vietnam

April 07, 2022
Photo by John O'Neil.

A 尤物视频 initiative created to support people in self-managing their depression is being reimagined as a virtual tool, to help reduce the community mental health gap in Vietnam.

Funding from Global Mental Health Program and the Vietnamese government totaling $2.8 million will result in the creation of an 鈥榤Health鈥 intervention app for mobile phones, called VMood, and support the development of community mental health services across the country.

The app鈥檚 development is being led by SFU health sciences professor John O鈥橬eil, in partnership with Vietnam鈥檚 Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) and a host of research partners from Canada, Australia and Vietnam.

The self-management tool will link users with mental health resources and be available to people across the country. The team will also assist MOLISA to create a data system for community mental health, and improve training opportunities for social workers and health care workers in community-based interventions for depression and anxiety.

According to researchers, depressive and anxiety disorders among adults and children are common in Vietnam, a country of nearly 100 million people. While primary healthcare is accessible to the general population, healthcare staff often lack sufficient training to recognize and treat common mental health care problems.

鈥淭his research program is, for me, the ultimate goal of all good research; to develop an intervention that will improve people鈥檚 lives and then work hand in glove with the agencies of government to ensure this intervention is available to everyone in the country鈥

John O'Neil, Health Science professor

The initiative builds on research that began in 2013 and was led by the late SFU professor Elliot Goldner, formerly director of the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction (CARMHA), who spent a decade researching how to make mental health services more accessible to people who needed them. He created and successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of a self-managed approach in Vancouver 鈥 including development of a self-managed workbook 鈥 before expanding it globally.

Grand Challenges Canada funded this earlier work as a pilot study in 2013 and later as a randomized control trial, leading to the intervention鈥檚 successful testing in several provinces. Results were significant, with nearly 60 per cent of those trialing the intervention experiencing clinically relevant improvement in symptoms.

鈥淲e鈥檙e proud to have originally funded 尤物视频鈥檚 Supported Self-Management Model in 2013, which has since been digitized into VMood,鈥 says Grand Challenges Canada Co-CEO Karlee Silver. 鈥淧romoting a collaborative approach to mental health management reduces the burden on health care providers and costs to healthcare systems, while empowering individuals to take an active role in managing their mental health. Supporting the transition to scale and sustainability of this mHealth app will significantly improve lives in Vietnam.鈥

Photo by John O'Neil.

Funding from CIHR in 2017 and later in 2021 allowed the current research team to further assess implementation barriers in the country鈥檚 social and health system environments, and to begin to adapt the team鈥檚 initial intervention into a mobile phone app in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Although the VMood project is being primarily deployed in Vietnam, Leena Chau 鈥 a PhD health sciences student on the research team 鈥 is hoping to test the feasibility of the app with the Vietnamese immigrant community in British Columbia.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a great privilege to have the opportunity to test VMood in the local Vietnamese community for my doctoral research,鈥 says Chau. 鈥淭his reverse innovation will enable the transfer of knowledge for application back in Canada.鈥

鈥淚t鈥檚 an honor for me to continue Dr. Goldner鈥檚 work in Vietnam,鈥 says O鈥橬eil. 鈥淚 hope we have done his legacy proud with this new funding.鈥

Grand Challenges Canada is a Canadian not-for-profit organization that invests in local innovations that address critical global health challenges in low-resource countries.

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