Background 

Danish municipal and regional psychiatric services are needing to make savings in line with the current changing demographic. This means that the waiting period for supported accommodation for citizens with mental illnesses or social challenges has lengthened, and that the eligibility criteria for getting a place to stay or being admitted to a psychiatric unit have become stricter. Most of these vulnerable citizens request supported accommodation or a hospital bed because they feel unsafe being alone in their own homes. They need the assurance that there is always someone available from whom they can seek help.

CEKURA A/S is working together with the Danish Technological Institute and Svendborg Municipality to test, further develop and evaluate their “A Sense of Personal Security” -- a psychiatric support service. With this service citizens can, with a single press of an alarm button at any time of day, come into contact with a CEKURA employee, who will be ready to chat with them and help them with their anxiety, schizophrenia, depression, suicidal thoughts, abuse or the like. By means of soothing, supportive and caring conversations, the expectation is that citizens and patients with social and mental health challenges may stay in their own homes instead of being hospitalised or living in supported accommodation, as they have the reassurance of always being able to contact someone in difficult situations.

Purpose/Vision

The results of a workshop held with representatives from Svendborg Municipality's Social Department, including supported-accommodation staff and managers as well as CEKURA employees, suggested that it could be advantageous if several of CEKURA's services were tested in a project based around the hypothesis that CEKURA’s services do improve citizens’ everyday lives. The target group for the project will be citizens with reduced cognitive abilities as well as citizens with different mental health disorders.

The purpose of this public-private collaborative project between Svendborg Municipality’s Social Department and CEKURA is to reveal to what extent CEKURA's conversation services can help citizens with varying mental health disorders and/or impaired cognitive abilities to improve their life satisfaction and independence. In addition, the purpose is to demonstrate a possible economic benefit for Svendborg Municipality resulting from the use of CEKURA's services.

Expected Outcome of the Project

There is a broad consensus that CEKURA's conversation service could have a major impact on clinical outcomes. The very act of contacting CEKURA’s service centre may have an empowering impact on citizens in terms of awareness of own needs, improvement of communication skills and prevention of a general downward spiral. In the long run, it may mean that citizens become better at coping and listening to their circadian rhythms – all of which may mean less need for medication (medical and non-medical) and less formal support being needed. Likewise, we would expect fewer suicide attempts and fewer hospital admissions.

From an economic perspective, we expect gains through:

• Reductions in the number of admissions to hospital psychiatric units
• Reduced support required from the municipality
• Increased citizen independence
• Reduced substance abuse
• Reduced physical abuse
• Reduction in self-harm and suicide attempts