Peakmind’s COVID-19 Mental Health Helpline Saw 2X Increase Post Pilot Experiment with Rapido

• Peakmind offered easy access to mental health care for those struggling with anxiety, stress and depression

• The successful pilot experiment witnessed close to200 calls within a span of 10 days

• The callers that utilised the service were predominantly male

Bengaluru, Karnataka:  Anxiety, depression, stress — the counsellors at Peakmind, a mental health organisation, received overwhelming calls on many of these issues due to the ongoing pandemic during a pilot experiment last month with Rapido, India’s leading bike-taxi platform. With India’s mental problem on an unprecedented rise, Peakmind offered easy access to psychological help for those struggling to seek the right mental health treatment.

The mental health organisation offered a free helpline round the clock to Rapido users across the country. The successful pilot experiment witnessed a 2X increase in calls to the helpline number. Most of the Rapido users who leveraged the mental health helpline number were between 20 and 29 years. The callers that utilised the service were predominantly male and further leveraged counselling sessions to address their concerns.

On the success of the pilot helpline, Neeraj Kumar, Founder & CEO, PeakMind, said, “Despite the increasing scale of mental illness in India due to COVID-19, millions of people still find it difficult to get the treatment they deserve. Most of the mental health helplines either go unanswered or are functional only during the day. It was important to help people get easy access to the help they needed during the second wave and the partnership with Rapido helped us leverage their huge user base to do so. We hope to continue to provide our expertise through more such partnerships that will help our stakeholders address their mental and emotional wellness problems.“ 

Aravind Sanka, Co-Founder, Rapido, said, “We have been initiating various initiatives for our users to help them endure the impact of the pandemic on their lives. This partnership was an extension of it. We hope that this service helped our stakeholders address their mental and emotional wellness and addressed their problems with the help of PeakMind’s expert psychologists and counsellors.”

Indians have been neglecting mental health issues for a long time now. According to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, about 100 million people in India suffered from mental illness in 2015, with 10% of them requiring immediate treatment. The COVID-19 pandemic only aggravated India’s mental health crisis. There has been a significant rise in depression and trauma among people due to COVID-19 and through such partnerships, PeakMind aims to continue addressing these issues and help build an emotionally empowered nation.