The tool was developed over four years as part of Hassem’s PhD studies in psychology and offers an “empathetic and unintimidating” first step towards recognising, understanding, and seeking help for depression.
Hassem and Laher will be allocated an innovation support manager from Wits Enterprise’s innovation support unit to help take the tool to commercialisation stage.
As a consequence, the statement said, depression often goes undiagnosed and untreated in SA and treatment is further compromised by social stigma attached to diagnosis and treatment, lack of awareness of symptoms, and the inaccuracy of depression screening tools. “The results indicated that, until now, there has been no depression screening tool specifically developed or adapted for the South African context. The research duo chose to adapt the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale to align it with the South African context,” the university said.
“Piloting the tool on a representative South African sample was a key challenge as the pilot study was conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic while hospital access was restricted. We had to rely on healthcare professionals to circulate information of the study to potential participants,” said Hassem.
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