Mental health management system

The mental health management system is a set of tools covering the entire chain of risk screening, tiered intervention, and follow-up tracking. It not only adapts to individual psychological self-help needs, but also supports institutional digital psychological services. It is by no means a hodgepodge of questionnaires that are common on the market and are "tested and done."

To be honest, after five years of digital implementation in the psychology industry, I have encountered more pitfalls in this type of system than the successful cases publicized by many manufacturers. Many companies and schools spend tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to buy systems, but after using them for less than three months, they are completely left to gather dust. The last time they helped an Internet company in Hangzhou conduct an old system evaluation, their backend showed that only 17 employees had logged in in the past six months, and 12 of them were HR, which meant that the money was wasted.

This situation occurs because many people's expectations of the system are fundamentally distorted: either they think it is a "problem population detector" that can screen out all those with psychological risks and directly fire/dissuade them.； Or they think it is a "panacea for liability exemption". Once the system is installed, all psychological problems of employees/students can be solved, and they no longer have to take responsibility. Both of these ideas fail to touch on the core positioning of the system - it has never been a tool to replace people, but a carrier to help professionals improve efficiency and help ordinary users lower the threshold for seeking help.

The current core positioning of mental health management systems in the industry is actually divided into two obvious directions. There is no absolute right or wrong, but the adaptation scenarios are different. The first type is those that take a serious medical approach, and are mostly led by teams with psychiatric backgrounds. They require that all screening scales must meet the diagnostic standards of ICD-11 and DSM-5, and all intervention plans must be based on evidence-based medicine. They must even be able to directly synchronize diagnosis and treatment records with the hospital's HIS system. This type of system is highly rigorous, and of course the operating threshold is also high. Ordinary users cannot understand it without guidance. It is more suitable for professional medical scenarios such as mental health centers and general hospital psychology departments. The other type takes the inclusive lifestyle route, and is mostly led by teams with Internet product backgrounds. It is believed that 90% of users are in sub-emotional health and do not need diagnosis and treatment at all. The first thing the system needs to do is to lower the threshold for help, such as adding anonymous tree holes. , light meditation audio, and peer-to-peer mutual aid sections, first make everyone willing to click on them, otherwise no matter how professional the functions are, it will be in vain. This type of system is highly active, but the professionalism of screening and intervention is definitely not as good as medical-oriented products, and it is more suitable for companies and schools to provide inclusive psychological services.

When I helped build a system for a vocational school in the Pearl River Delta last year, I deliberately integrated the two needs. After all, the school scene is special. It needs to be able to accurately screen out students at risk of self-injury and suicide, and it also needs to be able to provide daily emotional counseling for ordinary students. In the final version, the front-end entrance for students is similar to that of a daily social APP. The first thing you see when you click on it is the emotional station, which has campus psychological short dramas filmed by psychology social students, mindfulness audios within 10 minutes, and tree holes where you can post anonymously. Only those who actively want to take assessments can find the dedicated assessment entrance, which uses professional scales such as PHQ-9 and GAD-7 that have been calibrated by domestic norms. For users who are detected as being at moderate to high risk, the system will not directly label the students with "depression" or "anxiety disorder." Instead, it will automatically push them to the corresponding psychology teacher in the background for a one-on-one interview process, and a follow-up file will be automatically created in the background to track subsequent emotional changes. When we obtained the operational data last month, the monthly activity rate of students reached 62%, which is more than a star and a half higher than the 3% activity rate of the pure assessment system used before. In the past six months, 7 students with a high risk of self-injury were screened out, and they all received timely intervention. The school is quite satisfied.

Oh, by the way, at that time, some manufacturers suggested that we add an AI psychological consultation robot, saying that it could respond to user questions 24 hours a day and save labor. I specifically found the interfaces of three leading manufacturers and tested them for a week. I found that in the extreme case where a user says "I feel like life is boring", the AI ​​will either answer the question incorrectly and talk about correct nonsense about "get more sun and exercise more", or it will only mechanically repeat "I suggest you seek help from professionals." On the contrary, it is easy for the user to feel that he is not understood and his mood will be worse. In the end, we directly cut off this function and replaced it with keyword warning. As long as the user mentions keywords such as "suicide", "self-mutilation" and "don't want to live" in the tree hole or in the evaluation, the system will directly pop up a pop-up window of the 24-hour psychological intervention hotline. At the same time, it will send emergency alerts to the psychological teachers and administrators on duty in the background. So far, three warnings have been triggered, and they have been intervened in time without any problems.

When many people buy a system, they always look for the one with the most functions, thinking that the more complete the system, the better. In fact, this is not the case. Think about it, if you are a small company with more than 100 employees and want to provide some psychological benefits to your employees, you must buy a medical-grade system with a complete diagnosis and treatment path. Not to mention that employees cannot understand how to use it, even the HR responsible for the connection cannot understand how to operate it. It is a waste of money. On the other hand, if you are a mental health center that conducts psychological screening for community people, and you have to buy an entertainment-oriented system with tree hole complaints, it is definitely not professional.

To put it bluntly, a mental health management system is like a first-aid kit you carry with you. The contents of it depend on the scene you want to use it in. A band-aid and throat lozenges are enough when you usually go shopping. If you go hiking outdoors, you have to bring bandages and emergency blankets. There is no so-called "perfect version", and the one that suits you is the best.