A Chatbot to Help People With Depression

As a company with a social mission, UppLabs couldn’t stay aloof the situation with the COVID-19 outbreak. According to general statistics, one-third of the US population has depression, and in forced isolation conditions lots of people find themselves struggling with anxiety, depression, loneliness, stress, and fear. Many of them can’t reach out to their doctor, the rest don’t know they ever needed to reach out to somebody. So we decided to help them online. Please meet a chatbot and a website to help people with depression!

Fightdepression.co and the Bear

This is a volunteering project that UppLabs did on our own, with no investments or crowdfunding. Aiming to create a mental health advice website we did not mean provide therapy or treatment. It was created to support anyone who is experiencing depression or feels sad, lonely, and uncomfortable in this challenging time. Substance abuse and depression are on the rise and tempers are getting short. Our goal was to do what we can to help individuals and their families to get through this.

After the quarantine started, we engaged several expert therapists from the United States to help us with professional consultations. They emphasize creating a non-judgmental environment where people from all backgrounds can safely work to overcome the emotional experiences holding them back from reaching their full potential.

And as a result, in a month, UppLabs released a website https://fightdepression.co/ with the ‘Bear’ chatbot as a symbol of strength, gentle friendship, healing, and abilities to help others. By communicating with this Bear people could smile more, and feel that they’re not alone.

Mood Monitoring

This Facebook chatbot can:

• estimate how the users feel,
• monitor their mood for a week,
• try to cheer them up, and most importantly if necessary
• connect them to a real therapist who would help to understand the situation and provide qualified advice.

The users can also try a daily happiness scale where they can rate their overall happiness and are able to monitor their results during a week. Based on these results, the chatbot is able to share some relevant advice or connect them to a therapist.

Besides, on the Fight Depression website, we plan to publish relevant content on the mental health topic and to consult on how not to lose a good mood during quarantine and forced isolation. Of course, with the help of our experts.

Fight Depression Facebook Page

After creating a website, it is vital to gather the community around it and keep them updated, so UppLabs also created a Facebook page to which you can also join!

The original article was published here.

We are going to communicate with the audience of the website and on our FB page, ask about their well-being and help with advice, collect their comments, and try to create a community of people willing to help each other!

Stay safe and check out https://fightdepression.co/!