“When you become pregnant, you receive the Live better, a bible that answers all the questions new parents have. When you buy a car, the salesman takes you around the garage and in the glove compartment, you have the manual. But in mental health, that doesn’t exist. »
Geneviève Lessard, 45, wears several hats. She is a former police officer. She was diagnosed with post-traumatic shock after a long journey through the healthcare system. She is a peer support worker. And in recent years, she has been the “code designer” of a brand new application on which a team of researchers from UQAM has been working for three years: Mentallys.
Mentallys, it is the creation of Stéphane Vial, professor of interaction design at UQAM. He presented the image and concept of Mentallys, this week, in front of around a hundred organizations. It is a research-innovation project, “a bit like a start-up hidden at the university”, financed to the tune of nearly 1 million in three years by public research funds. A major project, therefore, which involved around forty students, co-researchers and companies. Its aim: to become THE digital one-stop shop for access to mental health care and self-care in Quebec. The first version of the application will be delivered in the spring.
It’s how to improve, streamline, simplify this whole complicated experience of accessing the right help, at the right time, for the right problem, in this world that we know little about and which embarrasses us: that of mental health.
Stéphane Vial, holder of the Diament chair
IMAGE PROVIDED BY UQAM
Mentallys offers a simple interface.
Mentallys, which focuses on a simple and fluid interface, was developed using “codesign”, therefore with the constant contribution of professionals, patient partners and peer helpers like Geneviève Lessard, consulted throughout the project. “We don’t bring anything that hasn’t been proposed and validated by the people who are going to use it,” summarizes Professor Stéphane Vial, also qualified as a psychologist, in France.
The application will have three components: reception and guidance (which will include explanatory videos on mental health and the possibility of chatting with a peer helper); a geographical map (to identify all the resources around you, public, private and community) and interaction with the desired service – helping pair or CLSC worker. Stakeholders could use Mentallys to contact people, transmit documents, make automatic appointment reminders, or even to start a chat, lists Stéphane Vial. Without going into clinical details, Mentallys could also include a brief history of a person’s care journey.
Care course
Access to care is complicated. “The care pathways are long, they are labyrinthine, they are discouraging,” summarizes Professor Stéphane Vial. Yes, he says, it’s woefully under-resourced, but that’s not the only problem. “If, tomorrow morning, you double your resources, there are other issues that do not change: organizational and software complexity,” says Stéphane Vial, who emphasizes that, in a CIUSSS, there are between 400 and 900 pieces of software. on average in Quebec. “You go to see your family doctor, he directs you to the CLSC access desk, and your request is caught in an administrative and software pipeline in which it progresses slowly. »
PHOTO FRANÇOIS LAPLANTE-ANFOSSI, PROVIDED BY UQAM
Stéphane Vial
Talk to Geneviève Lessard. It took him eight years between his first traumatic shock, at work, and his diagnosis of post-traumatic shock syndrome, in 2018. “I knocked on lots of doors, in the public, in the private sector, but no one targeted the right thing,” she says. A delay of one year to see a psychiatrist, another year to see a second, another one to two years of waiting for a support group… His story gives you headaches.
“What I found most difficult was knowing something was wrong, without knowing what it was,” says Mme Lessard, convinced that an application like Mentallys would have helped her.
In the aim of Stéphane Vial, Mentallys would one day be managed by a company with a social vocation, with specific statutes guaranteeing responsible management. The issue of privacy protection has been “at the heart of concerns since day one,” assures the professor. The application, he says, will collect a minimum of data (“last name, first name, telephone number, email”) and will not do any electronic tracking and will not include any advertising. “We are going to use the recognized secure Cloud service validated by the Ministry of Health,” says Stéphane Vial, who wants Mentallys will ultimately become a service offered free of charge to the entire population thanks to financial support from the State.