A culturally appropriate approach to improve mental health outcomes in Sri Lanka and China: Mental Health First Aid
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Project Leader
Associate Professor Nicola Reavley+61 3 9035 7628
Project Details
Despite the positive policy and health system contexts, there are not enough trained staff to provide professional care for mental disorders in middle-income countries such as China and Sri Lanka. As a result, there is a need to train non-specialists to identify and assist in managing people with mental health problems in order to improve adherence to treatment and clinical outcomes. Active engagement with local communities in order to promote service user leadership and mechanisms to ensure that programs are culturally appropriate are essential to improving outcomes.
MHFA training has an established track record in high-income countries of improving knowledge, attitudes and behaviours in relation to people with mental health problems. However, the appropriateness of the course content and implementation models in middle- income countries is unknown.
The overall aims of this project are to develop and trial culturally appropriate training for China and Sri Lanka. Re-development of the Delphi expert consensus guidelines (on which the course is based) for these countries is underway. Further collaborations with researchers in Chile, Argentina and Brazil are also being undertaken.