70K visited Egypt's first online platform for mental health and addiction

CAIRO - 8 March 2023: The Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population revealed that the number of visitors to the online platform of the General Secretariat for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment, since its launch on March 16, 2022, has reached 70,000 visitors.

 

Dr. Hayam Abdel Ghaffar, spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Population, said that this comes within the framework of the interest the ministry attaches to psychological support services, psychological counseling and addiction treatment, as efforts continue to educate citizens on how to obtain medical consultations for mental health, through the electronic platform.

 

Dr. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, the official spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Population, added that the number of electronic questionnaires that were conducted by users exceeded 19,000 questionnaires, while the number of “virtual” treatment sessions that were provided to visitors to the platform reached more than 4,400 sessions.

 

For her part, Dr. Menen Abdel-Maksoud, Secretary-General of the Secretariat of Mental Health and Addiction Treatment, said that the percentage of visitors to the platform was 57% of females, compared to 43% of males, stressing that the visitors to the platform included 18% of married couples, compared to 82% of unmarried couples.

 

Abdel Maqsoud indicated that most of the age groups that used the platform ranged from 15 to 25 years, while the percentage of non-working users reached 60% compared to 40% of workers at the level of the governorates of the Republic.

 

She emphasized that the electronic platform for mental health and addiction treatment aims to provide free mental health and addiction treatment services for all age groups, Egyptians and non-Egyptians residing in Egypt, which is the first of its kind in the Eastern Mediterranean region, calling on all citizens to visit the platform and benefit from the various services, provided by the General Secretariat for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment via the following link: https://nmhp.mohp.gov.eg/mental/web/ar.

 

Dr. Menen Abdel Maqsoud added that the General Secretariat for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment formed a committee to discuss mechanisms for establishing policies for electronic mental health services, which included increasing the number of therapists in virtual psychiatric clinics, means of attracting the public to psychological services “remotely” and proposing regulatory laws to host the electronic national platform for mental health and mechanisms, in addition to the possibility of integrating virtual psychological services within the health insurance system, and the importance of laws regulating electronic drug prescriptions.