Mental Health Indices as Biomarkers for Assistive Mental Healthcare in University Students

• Published in: 2022 10th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII) pp. 1 - 8
• Main Authors: Majethia, Rahul, Sharma, Vadlamudi Pratiksha, Dwaraghanath, Rishika
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 18.10.2022
• Subjects: Assistive Healthcare; Correlation; Depression; Design methodology; Ecological Momentary Assessment; Medical services; Mental health; Mental Health Indices; mHealth; Organizations; Stakeholders; Student Mental Health
• ISSN: 2156-8111
• DOI: 10.1109/ACII55700.2022.9953847

In remote mental healthcare systems, formal evaluation and clinical assessment of common mental health disorders such as anxiety, post traumatic stress, depression, etc. is significantly difficult because the severity of their indicative symptoms cannot be easily assessed or quantified. However, over the last decade, various clinical Mental Health Indices have been proposed and used by various health organizations and medical professional communities to detect or assess severity of multiple disorders. In this paper, we propose and design a formal methodology for evaluating the correlation and corroboration between three indices, viz. MHI-5, WHO-5 and PHQ-9 for preemptive flagging of mental health issues in university students. In a participatory retrospective study of 235 students driven by ecological momentary assessments, we were able to quantify question-wise correlation between indices, assess student perception of personal mental health, and draw comparisons between index scores and official diagnosis of mental health disorders. Through this work, we make a case for continuous assessment and progress-tracking of mental health history using the MHIs for assisting campus counsellors, psychologists and other stakeholders in student welfare.