The MEICIS Mental Consultation Room, a Website to Search for Consultation Organizations in the Community Launched

For people with problems to be connected to the consultation, it is necessary that they first have information about organizations. To lead to the actual consultation, it is indispensable to show them detailed things such as where people can consult about their worries, what kind of institution there is, office hours, fees, and so on. In such cases, it is helpful to use search services immediately, and they find out “where” and “what” they can consult. When considering the life in the area, it is very important to have information on community-based services that cover various contents of consultations. Based on the above, the MEICIS researchers have developed a website to search for mental health consultation services, the MEICIS Mental Consultation Room. The MEICIS aims at enhancing community-based consultation and support services in the Community-based Integrated Care System for Mental Disorders. In addition, the website emphasizes the user interface, which is easy for people both to access and understand regardless of age and sex.
The MEICIS Mental Consultation Room uses designs and illustrations friendly with everyone. In addition, it adopts 13 consultation categories according to contents and fields, and users can access the appropriate consultation organization easily and quickly. For example, in the “Consultation about children” category, the following main complaint items are provided as options, as follows: “I want to consult about childcare,” “I want to consult about frustration, anxiety, and discipline in childcare,” “I am concerned about my child’s development,” and “I am concerned about my child’s character and behavior.” By choosing a main complaint, a list of consultation organizations that provide the relevant services is displayed. The listed consultation organizations, which include services provided by Ota City, have already agreed with the purpose of the research and this website and provided permission to be listed.
From now on, the MEICIS researchers will receive user feedback on the usability of the website using the questionnaires set up on the site, and they will continue to update the website to improve it further. It is expected that this website will become a model in each region for disseminating information about consultation and counseling services in the Community-based Integrated Care System for Mental Disorders in Japan.

“MEICIS Mental Consultation Room” website URL: https://sodan.meicis.jp/