Development an app for monitoring stress level and early detection of mental disorders in Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract Background Stress may contribute to physical and mental health problems. The number of people with mental-emotional disorders has reached up to be 19 million people in Indonesia in 2018. Monitoring stress levels and early detection are important to prevent serious mental health problems. Therefore, we are developing De-stres©, a mobile app for monitoring the stress level and early detection of mental health disorders in Bahasa Indonesia. Methods De-stres© was developed for android OS and web-based app by using the web2py framework and PostgreSQL database. The app used the PSS-10 and Beck Depression-II questionnaires that were available in Bahasa Indonesia. It had six main functions: creating an account, approving the informed consent, filling the questionnaire, generating test results automatically, advice from psychologists based on the test result and saving test history. Results A month since its launch, the six functions test ran well on the Android OS and the website. A preliminary result showed that the app was downloaded more than 100 times from Google Playstore. Among the 420 data records, 71.6% (301) app users were students, with 60.7% (255) using the app to measure only stress level, 25.5% (107) resulting in severe stress and 4% (17) severe depression. Conclusions De-stres© is successfully developed and a promising instrument that can be implemented for Indonesia, by providing preliminary self-administered questionnaire. Key messages De-stres© is an app for monitoring stress levels and early detection of mental health problems and successfully developed with preliminary self-administered questionnaires in Bahasa Indonesia. De-stres© is a promising app that can be implemented for preventing serious mental health disorders in Indonesia.