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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 bring home four medals
2011-08-22

 

Bruno Schwalbach and Balungile Ngofe

As part of the Protea Karate Team, two Kovsies represented South Africa at the Senior Commonwealth Karate Championships that took place in Sydney, Australia in July 2011.

Bruno Schwalbach achieved a three-medal haul, winning a silver medal in the Senior Kata, a bronze in die Senior o.67 kg Kumite and a bronze in the Senior Team Kumite. Balungile Ngofe achieved a prestigious fifth place in the Senior u.60 kg Kumite and a bronze medal in the Team Kumite.

Both Kovsies earned a place in the prestigious five-man Team Event, where the top-five fighters from each country competed head to head against other countries in what comprises the tournament's main event. South Africa narrowly lost the semifinal to Australia (the gold medallists), but still received a bronze medal.

These are excellent results at such prestigious karate championships, where most top achievers are world-cup medallists. Bruno Schwalbach was also selected to be part of the karateka South African Protea Karate Team that will represent South Africa at the All Africa Games in Maputo from 30 August 2011 to 23 September 2011. In October this year, Bruno will also represent South Africa as part of the National u.21 Protea Team, which will compete in the WKF World Karate Championships in Melaka, Malaysia.

 

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