The use of mobile apps in supporting TB treatment adherence.
EPISODE 2
HPSIG Podcasts
Exploring delays in seeking help among symptomatic breast cancer patients.
EPISODE 1
HPSIG Podcasts
Part 1: Exploring delays in seeking help among symptomatic breast cancer patients.
Part 2: Exploring delays in seeking help among symptomatic breast cancer patients.
Health Psychology Special Interest Group – Do you have an interest in Health Psychology?
Between Freedom and Confinement: A conversation with Professor Heidi Lourens on International Day of Persons with Disability
In a short conversation with Heidi Lourens, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Johannesburg, she speaks about how people living with disabilities continue to be made invisible in society as a result made to choose between freedom and confinement. The conversation was a reflection on an article Professor Lourens’ co-authored titled, The invisible lockdown: reflections on disability during the time of the Coronavirus pandemic.
In the conversation, Heidi lifts several issues, one being how the Covid-19 pandemic has offered little that is new in the lives of people living with disabilities. They continued to be made invisible and unnoticed during the pandemic. The invisibleness of people with disability pre- and during the pandemic produces a situation wherein they must choose between confinement and freedom.
The interview took place via an online platform, sitting in our respective homes, pushed into this situation as the pandemic continues to take control over our ability to speak face-to-face with colleagues, friends and family. I began the interview by asking Heidi what motivated her to write the article. She responded by saying:
“Immediately after the lockdown started, I thought there are things here that sound and feel a bit familiar to me. You know about my situation as a person with a disability.”
Heidi became increasingly aware that people were for example, moaning and complaining about not being able to go out of the house without feeling anxious. She was also experiencing anxiety – of contracting the virus “for the safety of family. But people were very distressed about the isolation they were experiencing.” For Heidi, there was a sense of familiarity with some of these feelings, yet not totally the same. It resonated with what life was like living with a disability. For the disabled person, there are a myriad of obstacles that have to be faced when going outside, even when going to work, yet these remain unseen – invisible to the general public. Heidi, explains how that despite the challenges faced on a daily basis by persons with disabilities the alternative would be isolation, confinement from the outside world. This confinement is a product of how the world engages with disability, Heidi points out during the interview:
“It would be a mistake to think that disabled people are living isolated lives, right? But it is more difficult not to live those isolated lives.”
Before relocating to Johannesburg, Heidi lived in a small town where there was no public transport, and she did not have a guide dog. She was totally dependent on other people should she ever want to leave her house. Heidi explained that this reliance on others for daily activities was itself isolating. Although she moved to Johannesburg and got a guide dog, experiences of anxiety are still a constant in her life, having to negotiate if cabs will accept her dog, will she be dropped in a place that her dog can navigate. So, for the disabled person, you must choose isolation or anxiety. However, isolation is also fraught with anxiety, as the world has experienced with the pandemic.
The assumption that people with disabilities should live in confinement, isolated from the world because they are comfortable with this way of the world, is challenged by Heidi. She continues to reflect that this status of confinement is rather part of the collective unconscious of able-bodied people, who live in what she reflects in the article as a ‘counterfeit paradise’, where the current order of the world is just towards all people.
In fact, it is seen as unjust, in this paradise, when people living with disabilities affirm their own freedom outside of the boundaries of the status quo. Heidi captures this need for a self-defined freedom in the interview speaking on her last adventure skydiving before the world was plunged into chaos:
“You know it just felt I’m as free as a bird. And freedom is exceptionally important for me because it’s something that I don’t often have – being free and being spontaneous.”
Although the pandemic may not have been different experientially for Heidi, she argues that it is the invisibility of disability, that has probably been exacerbated by the pandemic, that creates a situation of expected confinement. Her experience of skydiving was to push against this confinement, towards the freedom that is afforded to able-bodied persons.
On this year’s International Day of Disabled Persons, Heidi’s reflections about how people living with disability are somewhere between freedom and confinement should awaken us all to how we treat, write, think, and engage with persons living with disabilities. We should also become increasingly mindful to the ways in which we may force person’s living with disability into confinement, denying them the freedom that able-bodied persons enjoy in their daily lives.
You can find the full article The invisible lockdown: reflections on disability during the time of the Coronavirus pandemic here
Full Transcript of the interview is available on South African Association of Counselling Psychologists social media pages:
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Special Thanks to Professor Heidi Lourens for her time.
Lockdown mental health in the spotlight with first SA focused depression screening tool
WITS University psychology researcher, Tasneem Hassem has been awarded R100 000 in seed funding to advance the development and commercialisation of the first validated online depression screening tool suitable to the South African context. Developed over four years as part of her PhD studies in psychology, the tool offers an empathetic and unintimidating first step towards recognising, understanding and seeking help for depression.
The innovation was chosen from eight in the final pitch of the latest Prospector@WITS course run by Wits Enterprise. Hassem and co-founder, WITS Professor Sumaya Laher, will be allocated an Innovation Support Manager from WITS Enterprise’s Innovation Support Unit to help take the tool to commercialisation stage.
Hassem says the online screening tool answers to a need for greater awareness of depression in South Africa; helping people to identify their symptoms in the comfort of their homes and empowering them to start the treatment conversation without the stigma, and without waiting for a professional consultation to interpret screening results.
In South Africa, access to mental healthcare facilities is limited to around 4 beds per 100 000 population in general hospitals, and 16 beds per 100 000 in mental health hospitals[i]. Access to mental healthcare practitioners is also limited. In 2019, the public sector reported having only 0.97 psychologists and 0.31 psychiatrists per 100 000 population[ii]. As a consequence of the limited or lack of mental healthcare resources in South Africa[iii], depression, often goes undiagnosed and untreated[iv]. Depression treatment is further compromised due to the social stigma attached to diagnosis and treatment, lack of awareness of symptoms, as well as the inaccuracy of depression screening tools[v]. During the past 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation has been exacerbated as the effects of lockdown have impacted negatively on physical, financial and emotional wellbeing, increasing incidence of depression. Access to health facilities has also been constrained by lockdown.
Hassem, a registered research psychologist currently completing her PhD titled: “Adapting an online screening tool for Major depressive disorder in South Africa”, says that depression continues to increase in South Africa and globally.
“Unfortunately, low awareness of the symptoms of depression means that many people do not know when they are depressed. During our research and through interviews with stakeholders, we determined that an online screening tool would help raise awareness of depression, reduce the stigma and facilitate quality conversations between people and health professionals.”
Hassem and Prof. Laher, who is the Head of Department of Psychology at WITS and a Past President of the Psychological Society of South Africa, conducted a systematic review in 2019 of online depression screening tools for use in the South African context[vi]. The results indicated that, until now there has been no depression screening tool specifically developed or adapted for the South African context. The research duo chose to adapt Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CESD-R) to align it with the South African context.
“Our tool is specifically adapted to capture the unique depression symptoms experienced by South African individuals. The user receives instant, downloadable feedback that provides resources for seeking treatment or care and can be used in the comfort of one’s home, on any smartphone, tablet, laptop or computer,” explains Hassem.
Hassem and Laher had to overcome some challenges in developing the tool.
“Adapting the tool was challenging as we had to consider various factors such as the ethical principles associated with online mental health screening, cultural appropriateness, content validity of the items as well as the fact that majority of potential tool users are not first language English speakers.”
“Piloting the tool on a representative South African sample was a key challenge as the pilot study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic while hospital access was restricted. We had to rely on healthcare professionals to circulate information of the study to potential participants,” says Hassem.
Commenting on the innovation, Anne Gabathuse, Senior Innovation Support Manager at WITS Enterprise: says: “Despite the challenges of research and development during the pandemic, these innovators demonstrated all the categories required for consideration in the Prospector@WITS course exceptionally well. They met with stakeholders and used the insights to shape the value proposition of the innovation, as well as optimise its appropriateness for the South African context. We look forward to seeing the online tool in the market where it has potential to positively influence the lives of people with depression by improving understanding and facilitating conversations that empower them to seek help.”
Ela Romanowska, Director of Innovation Support at WITS Enterprise says “The Prospector@WITS course, now run three times per year, has helped identify many very promising products based on the world class research conducted at WITS. What is exciting in this instance is that the tool developed by Ms Hassem and Prof. Laher has significant potential to support our communities in an illness that is prevalent, yet difficult to diagnose and treat not least of which because of the unfortunate stigma associated with it. Innovation must meet the real needs of our citizens, and is not just about profits.”
Haseem and Laher are grateful to William Eaton and team from the National Institute of Mental Health for enabling adaptations of the CESD-R tool by placing it in the public domain, as well as the National Research Foundation and Phillip Tobias Scholarship for providing much needed research funding.
“I am also grateful for the opportunity to be part of the Prospector@WITS Course through which I have learnt so many new skills about the business environment that we as researchers tend to overlook when trying to roll out innovations. I hope that this tool will benefit the South African community and help raise awareness about mental healthcare and wellbeing,” concludes Tasneem.
The next steps for the team entail piloting the online depression screening tool on a larger and more representative sample, and further developing and refining the website.
PsySSA Congratulates Division for Research Methodology (DRM) Executive Member on being awarded the seed funding!
Call for Applications: CaSP 2022 Seed Grant Competition
After two years of successfully running the Seed Grant Competition, the CaSP Division invites its members to apply for the competition which seeks to fund ONE innovative, practical, and sustainable community engagement project.
“The pandemic spells an unprecedented public health crisis in our country’s history, accompanied by an array of emotional, family, social, occupational, institutional and economic impacts that bear on all of us. It is in this very moment, too, that our fraternity is looked upon to assume leadership, composure and considered action as we rise to the call to share our skills, resources and wisdom, and act in solidarity in service of the collective mental health and well-being of our country. This is a moment when we will likely be asked to fulfil multiple roles and responsibilities – to provide care and compassion, foster a sense of safety and security, reduce negative emotional contagion, promote community connectedness, offer reliable information, and advocate for just outcomes for all.” (Prof Garth Stevens, President PsySSA, 2020)
Against a backdrop of limitations and possibilities for further change, the CaSP 2021 Seed Grant Competition encourages thinking out of the box, re-imagining Community Psychology through the different ways of engaging with communities during Covid times. We are also encouraging critical thinking that takes into consideration the sustainability and impact of existing or new community-based projects that will promote mental health and psychosocial well-being during and beyond the pandemic.
Grant and networking opportunities:
- Seed grant funding of up to R5000 for the winning application
- Mentorship support from members of the CaSP executive for the winning applicant to publishing an opinion/academic piece or writing a funding proposal for a community psychology project
The competition is only open to registered CaSP members. If you are not yet a member, and would like to apply for the competition, please log in to your PsySSA account and add ‘Community/Social’ to your divisions: