Africa's Treatment Gap

Across Africa, more than 90% of people with depression have no access to treatment, leaving millions without care. In many African countries, there are fewer than two mental health workers for every 100,000 people—compared with around 67 per 100,000 in high-income nations. This shortage leaves community health workers as the primary frontline for mental health support, but their capacity is limited by the demands of in-person care.

Digital interventions have been considered a promising solution to this treatment gap, given Africa's high mobile penetration. But currently, no scalable digital depression therapies currently exist on the continent.

Developing a Digital Guided Self-help App for Depression 

A team of researchers from King's College London (Prof Melanie Abas: Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience; Gabrielle Samuel: Department of Global Health and Social Medicine), in partnership with the University of Zimbabwe and SIXOSIX Media Inc., is addressing this gap by co-producing a prototype for a 'guided self-help' app for depression. The project builds on the Friendship Bench, a ground-breaking face-to-face intervention developed and researched in Zimbabwe through a 15-year King’s partnership.

The Friendship Bench model delivers problem-solving therapy through lay health workers on designated clinic benches. It now treats 70,000 people with depression per year in Zimbabwe and several thousand per year in Kenya, with two further African countries adopting the model.

The recent workshop brought together researchers, lay health workers, Friendship Bench clients with lived experience, and implementation specialists to co-design the app’s features. Participants discussed what the digital tool, which is designed to be data-lite and work on feature phones, should look like, which content and features to include, and what type of visuals and voiceovers.

Impact

The co-production workshop, along with further iterative feedback, has allowed King’s College London and the University of Zimbabwe researchers, with the help of SIXOSIX Media Inc, to develop a prototype design with some basic content. The aim is to now scale the app through further funding opportunities.