Mental Health

The Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Network seeks to connect and support frontline workers, researchers and policy-makers in delivering and developing mental health and psychosocial support services for individuals and communities affected by crises across the globe.

Many of the war-scarred citizens of Uganda’s northeastern Soroti district (population 322,000) suffer mental health problems. However, because mental health is accorded low priority by government and other agencies, people in need of help today resort to uninformed traditional and faith healers.

Untreated depression in pregnant women is of particular concern, due to its adverse effects on the health of the infant. The economic burden of depression in pregnant and postnatal women goes beyond the cost of treating depression itself. The scope and magnitude of the problem is magnified in humanitarian crisis settings. Scaling up existing and proven interventions for depression is slowed down by the costs, equity and quality concerns, along with service delivery issues. The lack of skilled specialists is another major barrier.

The project tests the creation of a social enterprise that will enable the delivery of alternative mental health treatment to children in the Philippines with mood disorders. This enterprise, ultimately national in scope, will hire and train para-professional staff, and provide treatment on a sliding scale of payments in which poorer clients would pay very little for their care. As a first step, in a trial to be carried out by a team at the Bulatao Center for Psychology Services at Ateneo de Manila University, led by Dr.

This project aims to pilot-test the OSITA (Outreach, Screening, and Intervention for TraumA for Internally Displaced Women) project in Colombia —  a country with 5.4 million internally displaced persons due to armed conflict.  In the capital of Bogota, 70% of IDPs are women and children, including many indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians, living marginally and at high risk of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.  Supported by mobile phone app, OSITA will train community health workers to screen for and refer severe cases of mental disorders.

In Uganda less than 20% of people with mental illness access care in hospitals. The problem is two-fold: (1) resistance on the part of people to access care in (modern) clinical settings, and go to traditional healers instead; and (2) bio-medical mental health professionals are suspicious of what traditional healers offer. Our general objective is to reduce the treatment gap among people with mental illness by increasing access to mental healthcare, reducing stigma, and thereby minimizing suffering among people with mental Illnesses.

Mental health stigma and discrimination is a worldwide public health problem that impedes access to effective and affordable community-based care and rehabilitation for people living with mental disorders. Health professionals are not immune to stigmatizing beliefs and practices.

In Ethiopia, there is limited understanding of mental health problems among the general population and, as a result, many people suffering from common mental disorders are undiagnosed and untreated. Screening for domestic partner violence and common mental disorders and treatments that are brief, safe, effective and affordable are desperately needed. Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is a tested treatment that can be delivered by healthcare providers and trained lay workers with little or no previous mental health experience.

Self-help groups, farmers' clubs and other community-based organizations will identify mental illness cases and facilitate access to care in a rural part of India where 5–7% of citizens suffer mental health problems and three in 100 commit suicide. With mental health professionals in short supply, detection rates are low, especially in rural areas, and problems are compounded by social stigma of patients.  The result: an estimated 80–90% of mental illness in India goes untreated.