TFT Can Successfully Help Meet the Increasing Demand for Mental Health Interventions

Mental health interventions by lay counsellors: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Suzanne M Connolly,a Michelle Vanchu-Orosco,b Jan Warner,c Pegah A Seidi,d Jenny Edwards,e Elisabeth Boathf & AC Irgensg

A recent reappraisal of the global burden of mental illness using a broad definition of mental illness as a disease concluded that it accounted for a greater percentage of the global burden of disease, in terms of years lost to disability, than any other disease category.1

Moreover, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2011 between 76% and 85% of people with mental illnesses in low- and middle-income countries went untreated.2 This gap was partly due to a shortage of mental health professionals and to resources being concentrated in large, centrally located institutions rather than in community settings.3

In many places in the world, there may be only one psychiatrist for every 500 000 people and most professional mental health resources are taken up by patients with severe mental illnesses.4 This problem has been exacerbated by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, which has further challenged people’s psychological and physical resilience.5,6 The use of community health workers has been examined as a partial solution to the shortage of mental health workers. However, in many settings, there are few community health workers, they are overburdened and little research has been performed into their cost–effectiveness in providing mental health interventions.

Conclusion The use of professionally trained, lay counsellors to provide mental health interventions in low- and middle-income countries was associated with significant improvements in mental health symptoms across a range of settings.

Additional RCT’s Published:

The main paper:http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01027/full

The thesis: http://hdl.handle.net/10852/66248

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