Online Group Therapy Across Solomon Islands.

Solomon Islands stretches across 900-plus islands in nine provinces, and the country's psychiatric inpatient capacity is centralized at Kilu'ufi Hospital on Malaita. For a patient in Lata (Temotu Province), reaching Kilu'ufi typically involves a domestic flight to Honiara, an overnight stay, and a ferry crossing to Auki, a journey that can exceed SBD 3,000 in transport costs alone. Even within Guadalcanal, patients in Weather Coast villages face hours of rough road travel to Honiara's outpatient clinic. Grouport removes this entirely: a group session is one tap on a phone connected to Our Telekom or Bmobile 4G, from wherever the participant happens to be.

The typical six-week wait for a mental health appointment following referral is a national average that masks provincial extremes. In provinces without a resident psychiatric nurse, the wait for the visiting mental health team can stretch to three or four months, and follow-up continuity is limited by the visiting team's rotation schedule. Grouport by contrast matches new participants to a group right after intake, and once placed, the group meets on a consistent weekly cadence with the same therapist, so participants build therapeutic momentum instead of restarting with each visit.

The Solomon Islands National Health Strategic Plan has repeatedly flagged mental health as under-resourced, with the Ministry of Health and Medical Services allocating a small fraction of its budget to psychiatric services relative to communicable-disease priorities. Training pipelines for psychologists and clinical social workers remain thin, with most Solomon Islanders pursuing that education abroad in Fiji, Australia, or New Zealand and often not returning. Grouport supplements the national workforce without competing for it, offering an option that exists alongside, not in place of, the country's own developing services.

With only 30.7% of Solomon Islanders living in urban areas, the vast majority of the population is rural or peri-urban and effectively outside the reach of Honiara-based specialists. The urban-rural divide is amplified by the fact that even Honiara residents in settlements like White River or Burns Creek face crowded outpatient clinics and short consultation windows. Online group therapy flattens this divide: a participant in Honiara's Kukum ward and a participant in a village on West Are'are share the same 60-minute group with the same licensed therapist, at the same price.