Mental health capacity building in refugee primary health care settings in Sub-Saharan Africa: impact, challenges and gaps

Jaak Le Roy · Benyam Worku Dubale · Peter Ventevogel

101 citations0/0 files storedCambridge Prisms Global Mental Health

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Migration, Health and Trauma Mental Health Treatment and Access Health Policy Implementation Science

Abstract

BACKGROUND: In 2015, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees started a process of mental health capacity building in refugee primary health care settings in seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, ultimately aiming to decrease the treatment gap of mental, neurological and substance use (MNS) conditions in these operations. In 2015 and 2016, a specialized non-governmental organization, the War Trauma Foundation, trained 619 staff with the mental health gap action programme (mhGAP) Humanitarian Intervention Guide (HIG), a tool designed to guide clinical decision making in humanitarian settings. METHODS: This paper describes the results of a process evaluation of a real-life implementation project by an external consultant, one and a half years after starting the programme. RESULTS: The mhGAP-HIG capacity building efforts had various effects contributing to the integration of mental health in refugee primary health care. Facility-and community-based staff reported strengthened capacities to deliver mental health and psychosocial support interventions as well as changes in their attitude towards people suffering from MNS conditions. Service delivery and collaboration amongst different intervention levels improved. The scarcity of specialized staff in these settings was a major barrier, hindering the setting-up of supervision mechanisms. CONCLUSION: Mental health training of non-specialized staff in complex humanitarian settings is feasible and can lead to increased competency of providers. However, capacity building is a 'process' and not an 'event' and mhGAP trainings are only one element in a spectrum of activities aimed at integrating mental health into general health care. Regular supervision and continuing on-the-job training are in fact critical to ensure sustainability.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 101 citations exist upstream.

References

2007Resources for mental health: scarcity, inequity, and inefficiency 2011Human resources for mental health care: current situation and strategies for action 2017The contemporary refugee crisis: an overview of mental health challenges 2017WHO Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) Intervention Guide: a systematic review of evidence from low and middle-income countries 2022The inter-agency standing committee (IASC) guidelines on mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in emergency settings: a critique 2014Mental, neurological, and substance use problems among refugees in primary health care: analysis of the Health Information System in 90 refugee camps 2017Implementing mhGAP training to strengthen existing services for an internally displaced population in Pakistan

Cited by

2020Health Status and Health Care Needs of Drought-Related Migrants in the Horn of Africa—A Qualitative Investigation 2020Labor Rights as Human Rights 2023Health Care Organization in Poland in Light of the Refugee Crisis Related to the Military Conflict in Ukraine 2022A call for nurses and interdisciplinary collaborators to urgently respond to the health and well‐being needs of refugees across the world 2025

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.