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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

Postgraduate School Student Council reaches out to child-headed households
2012-12-03

Members of the Postgraduate School Student Council and some of the children who benefited from their outreach programme
3 December 2012


Our Postgraduate School Student Council, in collaboration with the Postgraduate School Directorate, undertook a community project in 2012, focused on making a difference in the lives of children burdened with supporting themselves without proper parental guidance. The council worked with Child Welfare Bloemfontein and five child-headed households were identified in the greater Mangaung area.

To ensure the success of the project, the council helped to get sponsorships to assist with raising funds and the reception of donations. The council, with the broader postgraduate community, also sought donations from the university community and the public at large. The result was astounding and 12 children were presented with food items, toiletries as well as school uniforms and stationery to the value of R14 500.

An additional R2 000 was donated to Child Welfare for related projects that will benefit other households. This initiative was made possible by the generous support of the UFS-RAG office and the Thakaneng Bridge branches of Friendly Supermarket and Van Schaik Bookstore, Lesedi FM and Kovsie FM, as well as some private donors.

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