Personal Emotional Health Self-Check

Depression and anxiety are very common in pregnancy and after having a baby, and too often the symptoms are not identified early.

That’s why, your private health fund is offering you a free, confidential self-check screen, an iCOPE Screen – to identify if you may be at risk of developing a mental health condition or may be experiencing symptoms of conditions like anxiety or depression at this time.

What is the iCOPE screen?

iCOPE is a complimentary digital screening tool that asks you a number of questions to determine your likelihood of developing emotional and/or mental health problems when having a baby, and whether you may be currently experiencing symptoms common to depression and anxiety.

How does it work?

The iCOPE screen asks you a number of questions about your current situation and how you have been feeling. This information is used to generate an instant, personally tailored report to provide you with valuable insights as to:

  1. Whether you are at risk of developing mental health problems in pregnancy or in the year following birth. This is assessed by asking you about the presence of known risk factors and only requires yes or no answers to the questions.
  1. Your likelihood of currently experiencing symptoms of antenatal or postnatal depression and/or anxiety currently. This involves asking to you to select responses to questions that reflect the way that you have been feeling over the past 7 days.

Do I receive the results?

Yes.  As part of the screening process you are asked if you would like to access your own personal report, which provides an assessment of your answers to the above questions.  You can nominate to receive this via SMS or email, and nominate where you would like this to be sent.  There is no identifying information on the report.  

What happens to my results?

All data collected by the iCOPE system are stored by COPE on a secure Health Data server. This information will not be used for any other purpose.   You can nominate within the survey if you are happy for your de-identified data to be made available for research purposes.

Will my health insurer see my personal results?

No identifying information is provided back to the insurer – that way your individual results will remain strictly confidential.

Your health insurer may only have access to de-identified data if you choose to make this available to them.  Those consenting to making their data available will not be able to be identified personally.  This collective de-identified data may be used by your insurer to provide an understanding of their members and their information needs.

Will my results affect my premiums?

No.  As no personally identifying information can be accessed by your insurer, there is no way that your personal premiums can be affected as a result of the screen.

For more information about this program, please contact the COPE team at info@cope.org.au