Mental Health Tanzania App for Service Users and Multidisciplinary Practitioners

Background: Mental health problems are challenging the world due to instability of mental healthcare systems. One in 4 adults has a mental condition whereas, 1 person dies from suicide every 40 seconds (WHO, 2019), and mental health problems are the main causes of the overall diseases burden worldwide, (The Mental Health Foundation, 2016). In Tanzania, mental healthcare is not only facing uncountable challenges but also commonly unknown model of healthcare unlike physical healthcare

The aim: To investigate whether there is a relationship between smartphone users and Tele mental Health (mobile health) application via Mental Health Tanzania App (MHT App) MHT App is a digital club application between individuals (users/ clients) and multidisciplinary practitioners for mental health services at their fingertips. The app user who gets in touch with the professional via MHT App, can access psychiatry disorders diagnosis, interventions to psychological challenges, short and long treatment plans.

Methodology: This was a correlational research which main emphasis was to discover or establish the existence of a relationship/association between smartphone users and Tele mental Health (mobile health) via MHT App. The sample size was taken from the population of smartphone users which is about 23.1 Million Tanzanians, thus, 45% of Tanzanian populations (Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority [TCRA], 2018) with essential tools to intervene their mental health problems. The selection of participants was done primarily through second data analysis.

Results: There was a relationship between smartphone users and Tele mental Health (mobile health) application via MHT App, the hypothesis was confirmed. The application has revealed its importance to offer access of counselling, psychotherapy, psychological support, psychoeducation, and mental health awareness via tele mental health hence 60% of participants prefer using tele mental health services rather than physically attend to seek mental health services.

Recommendations: Enabling Tele mental Health implementations such as MHT App is inevitable due to rapid growth of information technology. More investment should be directed to mental health services, especially mobile health technology like MHT app.