KUALA LUMPUR: Some mental health professionals in Malaysia are tapping artificial intelligence to detect early signs of depression.  The move aims to provide greater access to mental health resources, as the country faces a shortage of qualified professionals. This comes as Malaysia observes a troubling rise in mental health challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a recent national survey, about 1 million Malaysians suffer from depression, double the number recorded in 2019. Half of these individuals have also reported thoughts of self-harm or suicide.

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Having experienced severe depression himself, Dr Jest Wong and his team were inspired to create an application that uses AI to help in the early detection of depression.  With the app, users can simply scan a QR code and record a brief 90-second voice passage. It will then analyse the vocal characteristics, such as clarity, speech rate and tone, to generate a mental health report.  “You can actually know a person if they're suffering from depression or stress or not,” said the 40-year-old founder of Westwood Clinic.  “So we realised this is something that we can help the nation to make a better place. That's how we came up with the app (which offers) easy access.” More than half a million users have accessed the app since it was launched in July last year.  Depending on what is spelt out in the mental health report, it is then up to the user to approach psychiatrists for further help if necessary.  Medical practitioners told CNA that the rise of such apps can boost mental health care in Malaysia, where there is currently a lack of qualified professionals.  There are only about 500 psychiatrists in Malaysia, or one psychiatrist for every 200,000 individuals.  This is significantly lower than the World Health Organization's recommended ratio of one psychiatrist for every 10,000 people.  Dr Prem Kumar Shanmugam, CEO of rehabilitation centre Solace Asia, said: “With the increase in awareness of mental health-related issues and the lack of clinicians, this huge gap has forced us to look at other options to get treatment. “AI, digital technology and chatbots are definitely options.”

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While tools such as AI can facilitate mental health support, experts stressed that the technology cannot be a substitute for the nuanced understanding of human professionals. Citing various considerations, Dr Prem said: “I think that culture specificity (has not been) learnt yet. Whether it's medicine, psychology, or any kind of clinical workmilyon88, we need to be culturally sensitive to specific needs of different people.” Dr Maria Hennessy, associate professor of clinical psychology at James Cook University, said: “AI and chatbots are probably more a dream than a reality at the moment, in terms of how effective they can be for our own individual care.” The technology is developing and there is still a long way to go, she told CNA’s Asia First.  “At best, they can give basic information and communication, but they don't yet have that capacity to give you that empathy and that sense of rapport that you look for in a good mental health clinician,” she added.  “And it's that empathy and rapport that actually accounts for about 50 per cent of the effectiveness of what we do.” While more work is needed to implement AI in mental healthcare practices, particularly regarding data privacy and ethics, the use of technology is a step forward in encouraging proactive mental health management, said observers.  “They are there to provide basic, accessible information for people who otherwise might have difficulty finding it. But they certainly don't replace talking to a clinician,” said Dr Hennessy. “They've got a lot of potential, but we are nowhere near them yet.”

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