Alberta’s Text4Hope offers daily mental-health help amid wildfires

Albertans being evacuated from their homes while wildfires threaten their communities can lead to long-term mental-health issues, according to a psychiatrist.

Dr. Vincent Agyapong, the head of the department of psychiatry at Dalhousie University, says displacement can lead to anxiety, stress, depression and PTSD in the long term.

“Thousands of people are being displaced, being taken forcefully out of their natural environments, leaving behind property and also, in some situations, people are displaced from their community,” Agyapong told CityNews.

“So they are not within the same environment where they have natural supports of family and friends.”

Agyapong says studies looking at mental-health effects in the aftermath of the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfires found “significant short-term and long-term mental-health consequences.”

Agyapong, who is also a clinical professor at the University of Alberta, has first-hand experience with the devastating effects of wildfires.

Forced to evacuate Fort McMurray

He was forced to evacuate from Fort McMurray in 2016 with no notice and no chance to pack any belongings, having to travel north for six hours to a camp in the oilsands. After spending 48 hours at the camp, he was then flown to Edmonton.

“You could see the fire on both sides of the road,” Agyapong recalled. “You could actually see the smoke coming from the city… You had no idea what was going on because there was no opportunity to actually go and even see or take a look at what may be happening.

“So that’s the exact emotion that I believe many people may be going through now.”

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Agyapong says an important lesson about mental health came out of the Fort McMurray wildfires: people who got support from family members were nine times less likely to suffer mental-health issues such as a major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder or PTSD.

“We also looked at other factors, like for example support from Red Cross, support from government of Alberta, support from insurance – none of them significantly independently predicted that people will be either experiencing anxiety, depression or stress compared to support from family and friends.”

That knowledge led Alberta Health Services to place additional importance on immediate access to mental-health supports for Albertans impacted by wildfires.

Text4Hope: free supportive text messages

Albertans can sign up for Text4Hope to receive free supportive text messages every day. They can join by texting “HopeAB” to 393939 and will be immediately subscribed for 12 months.

Agyapong founded Text4Hope alongside a team of researchers. It was first launched in January 2016 under a different name.

“In a crisis situation it’s always very difficult to mobilize psychological support for thousands, literally thousands of people that may need a support. There’s no human infrastructure or resources that potentially can be able to reach everybody. So that’s where Text4Hope comes in.”

Agyapong says it was applied during the pandemic; 60,000 people subscribed to receive daily supportive text messages.

“(They were) tailored to mitigate psychological symptoms like anxiety, stress and depression during the pandemic,” said Agyapong. “So we’ve repurposed this specifically for those who are going through any stress or trauma as a result of the ongoing wildfires in Alberta.

“So it’s not the same pandemic message. It’s really tailored towards alleviating stress, anxiety and depression symptoms related to the wildfire.”

Text4Hope was funded by six Alberta health foundations: Calgary Health Foundation, the University Hospital Foundation, the Royal Alexandra Hospital Foundation, Alberta Cancer Foundation, Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation and the RBC Foundation.