Tuesday (14/12) Center for Public Mental Health (CPMH) Faculty of Psychology Universitas Gadjah Mada together with the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia and the Healthy Indonesia Partnership Foundation (YKIS) held a webinar with the topic “Mental Health for Rural Indonesia”. The event was moderated by Idei K. Swasti, M.Psi., a Psychologist and opened with an introductory remark by Prof. Irwanto, Ph.D. as Chairman of the YKIS Governing Body. In addition, this webinar event presents various speakers consisting of Prof. dr. Laksono Trisnantoro, M.Sc., Ph.D., Father Dr. C. Suparman Andi, MI., and Dr. Diana Setyawati, M.HSc., Ph.D.
One of the topics discussed in this webinar relates to the challenges faced by mental ministry. The challenges are about how to make service innovations reach mental health in rural areas and the limited number of health workers for mental services. Therefore, tele-consultation is needed to reach large rural areas and digital technology is needed to support these activities. “Access to mental services will be even better if it is supported by technology,” said Laksono
The challenges faced by mental health services in Indonesia have made Deni K. Sunjaya from the Faculty of Medicine, Padjadjaran University, innovate on Digital-based Screening System Development. “We built a platform that is now available for download. This platform only has five instruments consisting of depression, anxiety, PTSD, burnout, and mental emotional disorders,” explained Deni. It is hoped that the existence of digital-based screening can make it easier for health workers to follow up with a definite diagnosis and appropriate treatment.
Not only Deni, Father Suparman also conducts a mental service in the East Nusa Tenggara area which is known as the “Rumah Bebas Pasung”. “We are trying to build a mental health service system for shackled patients by building a Rumah Bebas Pasung.” Rumah Bebas Pasung was built next to the patient’s family with a note that the house was accessible to the family and very close to the family’s presence. This is done because they want to activate family participation in mental services.
There are various things that are risk factors for mental health in the region, including rural areas such as low socio-economic status, low education, negative stigma about mental health, underage marriage, lack of access to mental health services, and many more. Therefore, in the material presented, Diana recommended several things for these conditions, such as encouraging the allocation of adequate regional funds for mental health and the equitable distribution of mental health professionals.