Social Media and Web based intervention for Alcohol and Drug use prevention Muthoni Mathai Snr Lecturer, Department of Psychiatry Chair- Sub committee on ADA CHS, UON University of Nairobi ISO 9001: Certified

Objective The objective of this presentation is to  Look at the limitations in providing services in awareness and treatment of Substance Use disorders  To highlight the potential in using peer driven programs  To describe the potential of the web and social media

Introduction  There exists a gap in the provision of information, assessment and management of problems related to the harmful use of Alcohol and other psychoactive substances at the College of health Sciences

Increasing number of students According to the CHS Annual report the Year one enrollment undergrads and 307 post grads

Limitations noted by the DA Sub-committee at CHS  A Substance Abuse Prevention Unit has yet to be established  There was no space  No Funds yet to further develop the Substance Abuse Prevention Unit as proposed in the Operational Plan

Alternative Option  There was need to explore other means of carrying out prevention  The internet provided a virtual unexploited space that could be explored  Universities around the world were exploiting this potential  Contact should be made with the student leaders and interested students to further work on how best to explore this space

Virtual Prevention Unit The committee decided to work with the students of the CHS to:  develop a concept on the use of the web and social media in the intervention of drug use as a virtual prevention unit

Social Media Team  A social media working group was formed in 2014 including:  Students of the CHS- 13  Some committee members- 3  Members from department of Psychiatry Mental health research project- 3  IT specialists from CHS- 2

usage of social media at CHS- School of Medicine  A questionnaire was designed to establish students’ use of the social media  A total of 303 undergraduate students from the school of medicine (year 1, 2, 3 and 4) were recruited.  Males 162/ Females 141  Majority were between Yrs

Findings of survey Current useFacebookTwitterGoogle+InstagramWhatsAppCollege websites At least once a day times a week Once a week Occasionally Never Total 303

 All the students 100% of the interviewed, visit social media sites.  Facebook has the highest visits of at-least-once-a-day (40.9%)  67% were using Whatsapp at least once a day  Only 0.53% never used facebook

The concept The overall aim of the project is:  To develop a peer driven interactional portal that informs, assesses and intervenes to promote mental health issues around SUD at the CHS.

Aim 1: To create an interactional website  Provides regular information on alcohol and drugs.  Self assessment tools for Substance Use Disorders and related psychological disorders.  A moderated question/answer interaction base  Has a “my story page” to post- real life experience or case studies, and creative stories/ pictures  Peer moderated information boards.  *“live chat rooms” for group therapy

AIM 2: Peer Counseling  Develop a peer counseling and “chat room” moderation manual  Train PG students from the mental health programs  Train undergraduate students as peer counselors to do mobile/ online counseling, moderation of chat rooms.

AIM 3: Linkages  The proposed website will be linked to the CHS Website as well as the Schools, departments and students facebook pages.  Integrate students into the program to regularly populate student social media accounts with information

Activities carried out within this concept:  Reviewing literature on Social media in the prevention and management of SUD.  A prototype website developed by the members from IT specialists.  Awareness Video- Students SOM

The Mental Health Student Team  A group of CHS students had the idea to start developing material  They raised funds and with support of the committee made a Youtube video on Alcohol abuse and other mental health problems- Mental Health Student Team video R0oKropzq4http:// R0oKropzq4

Budget to develop the Website ItemDescriptionQtyUnit Price (KES)Total Price (KES) 1Hosting and Domain name110,000 2HTML/PHP Development125,000 3 Content Management System Integration (CMS) 12,000 4 Feedback Form/Blog/User Interface Design/MSQL DB 13,000 5Training & SupportAlot10,000 Total50,000

Action Plan for 2015  Implement Website  Student membership drive and involve students from the other schools of the CHS  To support and work with the students to develop more media based content for the project.  To explore different aspects of “live chat rooms”  To explore private public partnership in this project  To write a project proposal for funding in order to further develop and scale up the Social media project to include evaluation of impact

Acknowledgements  All the members of the Sub committee on ADA CHS- Antony Ayieko and Eric Guantai  Students SOM-  Taseer Feroze Din  Kim Mangoa  Linda Nyamute  Dipali Unadkad  Poonamjeet Kaur  Neha Sahi  Ruth Lucinde  Leah Itote  Eva Lang’at  Mwoka Meggie  Dept Of Psychiatry & MH research project- Manasi Kumar, Anne Mbwayo, George Khamati  CHS- IT Mark Wanyonyi  PRIME-K IT: Mark Sigei

Would you like to work with us to advance this project: Contact: Dr M. Mathai Or walk into the Mental Health Research centre at the the KNH department of Mental health (old hospital wing) and talk to George Khamati University of Nairobi ISO 9001: Certified