Colombian psychiatrist Laura Ospina-Pinillos is developing technology which can be the solution to assess the mental health of a patient.
Her unique prototype, which is being developed with a group of specialists from the University of Sydney, draws on digital technologies to inform doctors about a person’s state of mental health, giving them time to respond.
The technology works whereby a person's comments are entered and assessed by a system with sophisticated algorithms which detects the answer, thus alerting the person and also a health professional.
It comes after a Victorian coroner said international students needed encouragement to use mental health services following 27 suicides between 2009 and 2015.
Studies conducted by Dr Ospina-Pinillos revealed that technology can significantly help young people.
"There is a need in terms of mental health worldwide. People who require mental attention are many and the specialists are not many,” Dr Ospina-Pinillos told SBS Spanish.
“Technology represents a solution to cover all these mental health needs. It is important to know that approximately one in four people suffer from mental health problems and these problems manifest themselves before the age of 25.
“It is important that we can intervene in the care of our adolescents and children in a timely manner."
Dr Ospina-Pinillos described suicide as a “very complex phenomenon” that could progress from thoughts such as "I do not want to live anymore," "I want to end my life" or simply unstructured ideas such as "I would like to sleep, and "I would not want to wake up anymore more".
Elevated view of university students walking up and down stairs Source: Getty Images
“The technology would detect people at risk of suicide; that is, people who are thinking of taking their own lives so [doctors] can intervene immediately and [it would be useful for people] who are thinking of taking their own lives or people who have not been able to tell someone face to face that they have had a suicidal attempt or self-harm behaviour," she said.
"The burden of mental health is huge, and it is expected that by 2025 depression will be the first cause for people not going to work.
"That's why we say that if before the age of 25 someone has presented a serious illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (indicators of the first mental problems) and their cases have been ignored or a doctor has not been consulted, the opportunity to intervene in a timely manner has been lost, what we want in the world of medicine is to pay attention to mild or moderate symptoms to prevent diseases from progressing to serious or debilitating diseases in adults".
"Technology can help us to collect the patient's story so that it counts only once."
International student study
Dr Ospina-Pinillos conducted a study on the mental health among Latino students who studied English in Australia.
A total of 32 students participated, the majority were Colombians, while there were also Chileans, Spaniards, Argentines and Venezuelans.
Her research found that mental health issues among Latinos must be addressed early; some of them do not know the emergency numbers and live with depression because they do not adapt to the culture or do not know the language.
"Many of them have difficulties adapting to culture, language, country and work. [...] Many have certain adaptive disorders in Australia. In addition, they are not aware of the benefits of their international insurance," she said.
"If for a person who does not speak English it is difficult to explain to the doctor that his head hurts, it is much harder to explain that they feel sad or anxious.
"With the help of the proposed technology, students could receive help in their language. Among other services, information on health insurance, Spanish-speaking health professionals and the translators' service would be offered. [...] the information is not structured, and the technology could help connect them with health specialists.
She said young people do not know where to go and language barriers affect them
"There is no site that integrates all this information [...] students may be lost in the system because they do not know the services that are available to them. The technology would help to place the information in a single point" according to the specialist.
She hoped to further test the platform with a wider group of students.
