Mental health management system

A reliable mental health management system is neither metaphysics nor an IQ tax. For individuals, it is a "health compass" that dynamically monitors mental status and intervenes in risks in advance. For B-side entities such as schools, enterprises, and medical institutions, it is a core tool for reducing the incidence of psychological crisis events and optimizing service efficiency. However, the premise is to avoid the pseudo-system trap of "emphasis on data collection but light on service implementation".

Last fall I helped a certain non-university in the South select a system. They had bought a cheap system that only had 90-item Symptom List (SCL-90) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS). All freshmen were required to fill it out before starting school. One third of the students were marked with "severe depressive tendencies." The counselor had to talk to the students one by one, which made everyone very resistant to the psychological assessment. Later I found out that many students were afraid of leaking the information they filled out, so they deliberately selected the more serious ones, and some just checked the boxes casually because they thought it was troublesome, and the data were all invalid. The system that was later replaced has the functions of anonymous emotion check-in, tree hole talk, AI preliminary screening + manual review by psychological counselors, and automatic referral to the school hospital for high-risk situations. Students do not need to fill in their names and student numbers. They can complain if they want. The system will automatically identify keywords such as "life is boring" and "do not want to go to school" and mark them first, and then consultants will check the context to determine whether there is a real risk. After one semester, three students who had made suicide plans were actually identified. Family members and clinicians were contacted in time, and no major problems occurred.

Speaking of which, the academic circles have never stopped arguing about this type of system. Most scholars engaged in clinical psychiatry hold a conservative attitude. They feel that the assessment of mental state originally needs to be combined with face-to-face interviews and physical examinations. It is too hasty to rely solely on online behavioral data and scale results - you just finished an argument with your partner today, and you selected "extremely low" on the emotional check-in, and the system will mark you as "high risk". In essence, complex psychological problems are simplified into cold data labels. However, practitioners of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) recognize this type of tool very much. They feel that most people will subconsciously cover up their negative states when facing unfamiliar counselors. What they get in a single consultation is originally "cross-sectional" one-sided information. Instead, emotional records, sleep data, and social dynamics for several months can better reflect the real state fluctuations and help counselors find the causes of problems faster.

Compared with academic differences, the pitfalls that everyone has stepped on in practical applications are actually more worthy of vigilance. A few months ago, I encountered an HR complaint from an Internet company. The original intention of their boss to buy a mental health management system was not to care for employees at all. He wanted to use the evaluation results to screen out employees who were "highly sensitive, prone to anxiety, and have poor stress resistance" and put them on the optimization list. In the end, when all employees filled out the evaluation, they all selected "positive and full marks for stress resistance," and the system became a complete decoration. Some organizations are greedy for big things and cram all functions into the system. They need to conduct psychological assessments, take training courses, and connect with the attendance system. When employees open the interface, they see red dots everywhere and have no interest in using it. In the end, the system they spent hundreds of thousands on can only sit in the server gathering dust.

Don’t think that this thing is only useful for institutions. Many of the apps that we ordinary people come into contact with have functions such as mood diaries, sleep monitoring, and mindfulness guidance. They are essentially lightweight C-side mental health management systems. Last year, I worked on a project for three consecutive months. I often felt flustered and my hands were shaking for no reason. I thought it was a heart problem and I went to the hospital to check if anything was wrong. The doctor suggested that I keep a mood diary for two months. I found it troublesome to write by hand, so I found a small APP. I spent two minutes every day to score my mood and write two sentences to record what happened that day. When I looked through my records, I discovered that every time I had an anxiety attack, I happened to be working on a project at the end of the month and drank more than 3 cups of American coffee that day. Later, I reduced the amount of coffee on weekdays to 1 cup, and drank sugar-free tea when I was really sleepy.

Of course, it is true that the industry is now a mixed bag. Many systems built by small companies still use norms from 20 years ago, and the test results are not at all in line with the current psychological state of the people. Some systems have a mess of data security. The psychological records and consultation contents filled in by users are leaked at any time. In the past two years, there was news that a company's psychological assessment data was put for sale on the dark web. It is scary to think about it.

In fact, to put it bluntly, the mental health management system is essentially a tool similar to your blood pressure monitor. You cannot expect the blood pressure monitor to directly cure your high blood pressure, but it can remind you in time that "your blood pressure has been too high recently and it is time to see a doctor." Don't have high expectations that "it can cure psychological problems after taking the test", and don't beat it to death and think it's all an IQ tax. When choosing it, check to see if there are supporting manual services, whether the data is end-to-end encrypted, and whether the functions really suit your usage scenarios. This is better than anything else. Last week I met a friend who runs a community psychological consultation room. He now uses a small system to automatically follow up on visitors. He does not need to call each one to check on the status. The time saved can receive two more low-income charity visitors every week. Isn't this the greatest significance of the tool?