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10 October 2018 | Story UFS
UFS School of Nursing gets funding for mental health project
Ronelle Jansen received research funding to provide adolescents with improved access to mental health services and care.
Ronelle Jansen from the School of Nursing at the University of the Free State (UFS) received research funding as part of a multistakeholder capacity-building project to provide adolescents with improved access to mental health services and care in PHC (primary healthcare) settings. 

The research aims to develop and implement a mobile mental health (mHealth) application screening tool for primary healthcare workers (PHCW) to identify adolescent mental health problems and provide mental healthcare training. 

Under pressure 

Jansen (UFS team leader) says mental health screening is sometimes lacking at the clinic level, because the clinics are so busy. “PHCW are under huge pressure due to the number of people they have to see every day, and due to severe staff shortages.

“There is, amongst others, a huge amount of paperwork that needs to be completed for each patient. The nurses only get about 10 minutes to see each patient and mental health screening is seen as time consuming.”

Early identification 

Jansen says the mHealth tool will focus on adolescents and they hope that the mobile application will help nurses with early identification of mental health problems. The clinic staff will then be able to treat and refer the patient correctly. 

She says they hope an accessible and user-friendly mobile tool will also help to motivate PHCW to more regularly screen for mental health problems.

This research is a three-year project co-funded by the Erasmus + programme of the European Union. Nine universities will collaborate on the project. Other partner institutions include the Turku University of Applied Science in Finland (project coordinator); Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany; Riga Technical University in Latvia; the universities of Stellenbosch; Cape Town; Pretoria; the University of Zambia and the Lusaka Apex Medical University.

Jansen says the benefit of the research may be that PHCW will be better empowered to screen for mental health problems, with the aim to improve adolescent mental healthcare and train competent PHCW.

News Archive

Kovsies play hockey across the country
2010-03-01

Pictured: Cherie Smith
Photo: Hannes Pieterse

The men’s and women’s hockey teams of the University of the Free State (UFS) recently played against some of the best university hockey teams in the country. The Kovsies (first team) and Reds (second team) played impressively against Tukkies, Pukke and the University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) hockey teams.

“Unfortunately the Kovsie teams couldn’t beat Tukkies. The women lost 2-3 and then the men also lost 1-3,” says Frans van der Watt, assistant director and hockey coach at Kovsiesport.


After this, the UFS stood their ground against Pukke. Kovsies’ women’s team played to a draw with 2 each. The men’s team triumphed 2-1.

Next up was UJ and this time Kovsies really did us proud. Both the Kovsies and the Reds’ great games led to triumphs. The Reds won with an impressive score of 3-0 and the Kovsies won 2-0 against UJ’s best.

For the men’s team the challenge was a somewhat bigger. “The Reds played to a draw at 2-2 and the Kovsies lost 1-4 against an incredibly strong team of UJ,” says Van der Watt.

Kovsies’ men’s and women’s teams are currently ranked ninth and eighth on the list of the best university teams. The women’s teams in particular are making their mark with their victory over UJ and their impressive game against Pukke.
- Lize du Plessis

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