Training primary care health workers in mental health care: evaluation of attitudes towards mental illness before and after training

Intervention-based mental health training for community level workers in India –A systematic review

Community-level workers (CLWs) are frontline workers who function as mediators between the government and the community. They effectively and efficiently distribute government policies and welfare schemes directly to the public, especially health aspects. They play a vital role in primary care access and quality. Many recent studies demonstrate that physical health training of CLWs is indeed effective and increases access to services. However, there are no recent reviews that systematically understand the training of CLWs concerning mental health interventions, and reviews on CLW’s understanding about mental health issues and implementation at the community level is inadequate. CLWs are underutilized in aspects of mental health interventions despite having more potential for the same. They are the ones who need to know much about mental health issues and treatment availabilities. To understand this gap, a systematic review on training on mental health interventions to the CLWs in India, the method and content of mental health training in such studies was done. Our systematic search following the PRISMA guidelines included eight studies that met the eligibility criteria. The review of the studies that satisfied inclusion criteria suggests that training on mental health interventions with CLWs sounds effective. The researcher also provides recommendations to strengthen the CLWs mental health knowledge and discusses implications of mental health interventions through trained CLWs for the community. Based on the review findings, the researcher recommends ideas about how CLWs can be utilized accordingly in mental health aspects during the current pandemic.

Impact of intensive training on mental health, the experience of Port Said, Egypt

Background

Mental disorder is extremely common globally and integration of mental health in primary health services represents a critical gap especially in low- and middle-income Countries like Egypt. The World Health Organization has repeatedly called for effective training and support of primary care providers in the identification and treatment of mental health problems over the last decades.

Methods

This paper aimed to evaluate attitudes and knowledge of health care providers toward mentally ill patients and measure knowledge and retention of training messages over time. A 3-day mental health training workshop for nurses of public health facilities in the Governorate of Port Said was organized. Pre-training and post-training questionnaires (immediately after the workshop and 3 months later) were used. Significance of gain in scores was examined between baseline and following cross sectional rounds.

Results

The 73 participants in the study revealed a statistically significant improvement in knowledge and attitude toward mental health from the baseline (pre-training), from a general mean score for desirable answers of 10.5 (± 1.2) to 21.2 (± 0.6). However, results slightly declined three months after from the workshop (18.5 (± 0.6)).

Conclusions

Intensive short-term training on mental illness could be instrumental in improving knowledge and attitudes in countries like Egypt with extensive needs in terms of quality of comprehensive healthcare at primary and secondary level. However, additional evidence is needed to improve retention of information over time and to translate knowledge into clinical practice.

Systematic review of interventions to reduce mental health stigma in India

BACKGROUND

Stigma is a barrier for help-seeking, mental health service access, and contributes to the mental health treatment gap. Because the mental health treatment gap is greatest in low- and middle-income countries, it is vital to identify effective strategies to reduce stigma in these settings. To date, there has been a lack of synthesis of findings from interventions to reduce stigma related to mental disorders within India.

METHOD

A systematic review was conducted to provide an overview of the characteristics and effectiveness of stigma reduction interventions studies in India. PubMed, Embase and PsycINFO databases were searched for literature published up to 30th June 2020.

RESULTS

From a total of 1,984 articles identified, only 9 were eligible for final inclusion, published between 1990-2020. No study was found from North, North-East, Central or East India. Most stigma-reduction interventions were multi-level, that is, using a combination of intra-personal, inter-personal and community level strategies to target changes in outcomes of individuals, environments and community groups. Three studies focused on health and stigma-related changes at the organisational/institutional level. No interventions focused on the governmental/structural level. There were only two randomised controlled trials, and two studies focused on all three stigma components of knowledge, attitudes and behaviour. Most interventions were delivered to community members. None focused on mental health professionals as intervention delivery target.

CONCLUSION

There is a need for the development of comprehensive, culturally acceptable evidence-based interventions that act at multiple levels, and involve a mixture of various stigma reducing strategies with multiple target groups.

Core components of mental health stigma reduction interventions in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

AIMS

To identify and categorise core components of effective stigma reduction interventions in the field of mental health in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and compare these components across cultural contexts and between intervention characteristics.

METHODS

Seven databases were searched with a strategy including four categories of terms ('stigma', 'mental health', 'intervention' and 'low- and middle-income countries'). Additional methods included citation chaining of all papers identified for inclusion, consultation with experts and hand searching reference lists from other related reviews. Studies on interventions in LMICs aiming to reduce stigma related to mental health with a stigma-related outcome measure were included. All relevant intervention characteristics and components were extracted and a quality assessment was undertaken. A 'best fit' framework synthesis was used to organise data, followed by a narrative synthesis.

RESULTS

Fifty-six studies were included in this review, of which four were ineffective and analysed separately. A framework was developed which presents a new categorisation of stigma intervention components based on the included studies. Most interventions utilised multiple methods and of the 52 effective studies educational methods were used most frequently (n = 83), and both social contact (n = 8) and therapeutic methods (n = 3) were used infrequently. Most interventions (n = 42) based their intervention on medical knowledge, but a variety of other themes were addressed. All regions with LMICs were represented, but every region was dominated by studies from one country. Components varied between regions for most categories indicating variation between cultures, but only a minority of studies were developed in the local setting or culturally adapted.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study suggests effective mental health stigma reduction interventions in LMICs have increased in quantity and quality over the past five years, and a wide variety of components have been utilised successfully - from creative methods to emphasis on recovery and strength of people with mental illness. Yet there is minimal mention of social contact, despite existing strong evidence for it. There is also a lack of robust research designs, a high number of short-term interventions and follow-up, nominal use of local expertise and the research is limited to a small number of LMICs. More research is needed to address these issues. Some congruity exists in components between cultures, but generally they vary widely. The review gives an in-depth overview of mental health stigma reduction core components, providing researchers in varied resource-poor settings additional knowledge to help with planning mental health stigma reduction interventions.

Including culture in programs to reduce stigma toward people with mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries

Stigma is one of the main barriers for the full implementation of mental health services in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Recently, many initiatives to reduce stigma have been launched in these settings. Nevertheless, the extent to which these interventions are effective and culturally sensitive remains largely unknown. The present review addresses these two issues by conducting a comprehensive evaluation of interventions to reduce stigma toward mental illness that have been implemented in LMICs. We conducted a scoping review of scientific papers in the following databases: PubMed, Google Scholar, EBSCO, OVID, Embase, and SciELO. Keywords in English, Spanish, and Portuguese were included. Articles published from January 1990 to December 2017 were incorporated into this article. Overall, the studies were of low-to-medium methodological quality-most only included evaluations after intervention or short follow-up periods (1-3 months). The majority of programs focused on improving knowledge and attitudes through the education of healthcare professionals, community members, or consumers. Only 20% (5/25) of the interventions considered cultural values, meanings, and practices. This gap is discussed in the light of evidence from cultural studies conducted in both low and high income countries. Considering the methodological shortcomings and the absence of cultural adaptation, future efforts should consider better research designs, with longer follow-up periods, and more suitable strategies to incorporate relevant cultural features of each community.

Change in attitude of ASHAs towards persons with mental illnesses following participation in community based rehabilitation project

BACKGROUND

Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) play an important role in health care in rural India.

AIM

To study the change in attitude of ASHAs towards persons with mental illness (PMI) after involvement in a community-based rehabilitation program.

METHODS

ASHAs (n = 95) were trained to identify and refer PMI. Community Attitudes to Mental Illness scale was administered at baseline and after 18 months of training.

RESULTS

Domains of benevolence, social restrictiveness, and community mental health ideology showed significant improvement p < 0.001. There was no change in authoritarianism domain.

CONCLUSION

Engaging ASHAs in identification, referral and treatment positively changes their attitudes towards PMI.

Reducing mental health-related stigma in primary health care settings in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

AIMS

This systematic review compiled evidence on interventions to reduce mental health-related stigma in primary health care (PHC) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Studies targeting PHC staff (including non-professionals) were included. Primary outcomes were stigmatising attitudes and discriminatory behaviours.

METHODS

Data collection included two strategies. First, previous systematic reviews were searched for studies that met the inclusion criteria of the current review. Second, a new search was done, covering the time since the previous reviews, i.e. January 2013 to May 2017. Five search concepts were combined in order to capture relevant literature: stigma, mental health, intervention, PHC staff and LMICs. A qualitative analysis of all included full-texts was done with software MAXQDA. Full-texts were analysed with regards to the content of interventions, didactic methods, mental disorders, cultural adaptation, type of outcome measure and primary outcomes. Furthermore, a risk of bias assessment was undertaken.

RESULTS

A total of 18 studies were included. Risk of bias was rated as high in most included studies. Only six studies had tested their intervention against a control condition, two of which had used random allocation. Most frequently used interventions were lectures providing theoretical information. Many studies also used interactive methods (N = 9), discussed case studies (N = 8) or used role plays (N = 5). Three studies reported that they had used clinical practice and supervision. Results of these studies were mixed. No or little effects were found for brief training interventions (e.g. 1 h to 1 day). Longer training interventions with more sophisticated didactic methods produced statistically significant changes in validated stigma questionnaires. These results have to be interpreted with caution due to risk of bias. Methods for cultural adaptation of interventions were rarely documented.

CONCLUSIONS

More rigorous trials are needed in LMICs to test interventions that target discriminatory behaviours in relationship with patients. Cultural adaptation of stigma interventions and structural/institutional factors should be more explicitly addressed in such trials.

Evidence for effective interventions to reduce mental-health-related stigma and discrimination

Stigma and discrimination in relation to mental illnesses have been described as having worse consequences than the conditions themselves. Most medical literature in this area of research has been descriptive and has focused on attitudes towards people with mental illness rather than on interventions to reduce stigma. In this narrative Review, we summarise what is known globally from published systematic reviews and primary data on effective interventions intended to reduce mental-illness-related stigma or discrimination. The main findings emerging from this narrative overview are that: (1) at the population level there is a fairly consistent pattern of short-term benefits for positive attitude change, and some lesser evidence for knowledge improvement; (2) for people with mental illness, some group-level anti-stigma inventions show promise and merit further assessment; (3) for specific target groups, such as students, social-contact-based interventions usually achieve short-term (but less clearly long-term) attitudinal improvements, and less often produce knowledge gains; (4) this is a heterogeneous field of study with few strong study designs with large sample sizes; (5) research from low-income and middle-income countries is conspicuous by its relative absence; (6) caution needs to be exercised in not overgeneralising lessons from one target group to another; (7) there is a clear need for studies with longer-term follow-up to assess whether initial gains are sustained or attenuated, and whether booster doses of the intervention are needed to maintain progress; (8) few studies in any part of the world have focused on either the service user's perspective of stigma and discrimination or on the behaviour domain of behavioural change, either by people with or without mental illness in the complex processes of stigmatisation. We found that social contact is the most effective type of intervention to improve stigma-related knowledge and attitudes in the short term. However, the evidence for longer-term benefit of such social contact to reduce stigma is weak. In view of the magnitude of challenges that result from mental health stigma and discrimination, a concerted effort is needed to fund methodologically strong research that will provide robust evidence to support decisions on investment in interventions to reduce stigma.

An assessment of attitudes towards people with mental illness among medical students and physicians in Ibadan, Nigeria

OBJECTIVE

The authors surveyed attitudes towards mental illness among Nigerian medical personnel at three different levels of training and experience: medical students who had not completed their psychiatry rotation, medical students who had competed their psychiatry rotation, and graduate physicians.

METHODS

Six questions addressed beliefs about the effectiveness of treatments for four specific mental illnesses (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety) and two medical illnesses (diabetes and hypertension) among the three groups. A self-report questionnaire including 56 dichotomous items was used to compare beliefs about and attitudes towards people with mental illness. Factor analysis was used to identify key attitudes and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to compare the groups adjusting for age and personal experience with people with mental illness.

RESULTS

There were no significant trends in attitudes towards the effectiveness of medication. Exploratory factor analysis of the beliefs and attitudes items identified four factors: (1) comfort socializing with people with mental, illness; (2) non-superstitious beliefs about the causes of mental illness; (3) neighborly feelings towards people with mental illness; and (4) belief that stress and abuse are part of the etiology of mental illness. ANCOVA comparing attitudes among the three groups showed that on three (1, 2, and 4) of the four factors medical students who had completed a rotation in psychiatry had significantly higher scores than the medical students who had not completed a rotation in psychiatry. Graduate physicians showed a similar pattern scoring higher than the medical students who had not completed a rotation in psychiatry in two factors (1 and 4) but showed no differences from students who had completed their psychiatry rotation.

CONCLUSION

While beliefs about medication effectiveness do not differ between medical trainees and graduate professionals, stigmatizing attitudes towards people with mental illness seem to be most strongly affected by clinical training. Psychiatric education and especially clinical experience result in more progressive attitudes towards people with mental illness.

Mental health-related stigma in health care and mental health-care settings

This Review considers the evidence for mental-health-related stigma in health-care and mental-health-care settings. Do mental-health-care and other health-care professionals stigmatise people using their services? If so, what are the effects on quality of mental and physical health care? How can stigma and discrimination in the context of health care be reduced? We show that the contact mental-health-care professionals have with people with mental illness is associated with positive attitudes about civil rights, but does not reduce stigma as does social contact such as with friends or family members with mental illness. Some evidence suggests educational interventions are effective in decreasing stigma especially for general health-care professionals with little or no formal mental health training. Intervention studies are needed to underpin policy; for instance, to decrease disparity in mortality associated with poor access to physical health care for people with mental illness compared with people without mental illness.

How Mental Illness is Perceived by Iranian Medical Students: A Preliminary Study

The study aimed to assess medical students' attitudes toward mental illness following a 4-week psychiatry clerkship. All fifth-year medical students from three academic centers in Tehran were asked to participate in the study. They completed the questionnaire on the last day of their 4-week psychiatry clerkship. A self-administered questionnaire was used to examine participants' Attitudes Toward Mental Illness (ATMI). One hundred and sixty eight students completed the questionnaires (88.9% response rate). In general, the students had favorable attitudes toward mental illness at the end of their clerkship, with mean (± SD) ATMI total score of 78.6 (± 8.1) (neutral score, 66.0). The students showed the most favorable opinion (95.2%) about Category 5 (stereotypic attitude toward people with mental illness) whilst they revealed the least favorable opinion (64.3%) regarding Category 1 (social relations with people affected by mental illness). In addition, the students thought that movies were on the top of influential media on shaping the attitudes toward mental illness. Overall, most of Iranian medical students had generally favorable attitudes toward people with mental illness at the end of their clerkship. Therefore, it may be expected next generation of medical doctors show more favorable attitude toward mental illness.

The change in attitude and knowledge of health care personnel and general population following trainings provided during integration of mental health in Primary Health Care in Iran: a systematic review

Background

Mental health has been integrated in the primary health care program in small cities and villages of Iran in a national level since the late 1980s. We performed a systematic review of literature to investigate the effect of education on change in attitude and knowledge of mental health care providers and the population covered in the program during the recent two decades in Iran.

Methods

Electronic bibliographic databases including Pubmed, PsycINFO and EMBase as well as the main Iranian databases (Scientific Information Database, IranMedex, IranPsych, and IranDoc) were searched. Additionally, hand searching, personal contacts and tracking of reference lists were performed. All of the studies which compared the attitude and knowledge of the related population before and after an educational intervention were recruited.

Results

Six articles met the inclusion criteria and entered the review. All of these studies showed an improvement in the attitude and knowledge of the studied population. Although the studies were different in many respects, a meta-analysis on the two more similar studies showed a significant effect of training on long term improvement of the knowledge and attitude of the population.

Conclusion

A short term training improved knowledge and attitude of the population and health personnel immediately after the intervention. There is also evidence for a long term change in the attitude and knowledge of general population after short term training.

Knowledge about childhood autism and opinion among healthcare workers on availability of facilities and law caring for the needs and rights of children with childhood autism and other developmental disorders in Nigeria

Background

In designing programs to raise the community level of awareness about childhood autism in sub-Saharan Africa, it is logical to use the primary healthcare workers as contact point for education of the general public. Tertiary healthcare workers could play the role of trainers on childhood autism at primary healthcare level. Assessing their baseline knowledge about childhood autism to detect areas of knowledge gap is an essential ingredient in starting off such programs that would be aimed at early diagnosis and interventions. Knowledge of the healthcare workers on availability of facilities and law that would promote the required interventions is also important. This study assessed the baseline knowledge about childhood autism and opinion among Nigerian healthcare workers on availability of facilities and law caring for the needs and rights of children with childhood autism and other developmental disorders.

Method

A total of one hundred and thirty four (134) consented healthcare workers working in tertiary healthcare facilities located in south east and south-south regions of Nigeria were interviewed with Socio-demographic, Knowledge about Childhood Autism among Health Workers (KCAHW) and Opinion on availability of Facilities and Law caring for the needs and rights of children with Childhood Autism and other developmental disorders (OFLCA) questionnaires.

Results

The total mean score of participated healthcare workers on KCAHW questionnaire was 12.35 ± 4.40 out of a total score of 19 possible. Knowledge gap was found to be higher in domain 3 (symptoms of obsessive and repetitive pattern of behavior), followed by domains 1 (symptoms of impairments in social interaction), 4 (type of disorder autism is and associated co-morbidity) and 2 (symptoms of communication impairments) of KCAHW respectively among the healthcare workers. Knowledge about childhood autism (KCA) as measured by scores on KCAHW questionnaire was significantly associated with age group distribution of the healthcare workers, with those age group of fourth decades and above more likely to have higher mean score (p = 0.004) and previous experience of managing children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) (p = 0.000). KCA showed near significant association with area of specialty, with those healthcare workers in psychiatry compared to pediatrics having higher mean score (p = 0.071) and also with years of working experience of the healthcare workers (p = 0.056). More than half of the healthcare workers subscribed to the opinion that facilities and law caring for the needs and rights of children with childhood autism and other developmental disorders are lacking in Nigeria.

Conclusion

The correlates of KCA may help in selection of those tertiary healthcare workers that would best fit the role of trainers. It is important to update the knowledge gaps of those healthcare workers who scored low in different domains of KCAHW questionnaire. It is imperative for policy makers in Nigeria to advocate and implement multidisciplinary healthcare service system that would ensure early diagnosis and interventions. Nationally representative baseline epidemiological data that would guide policy and planning are also desirable.

Training, attitudes and practice of district health workers in Kenya

BACKGROUND

The 1994 mental health policy in Kenya was rooted in the concepts of Primary Health Care articulated at Alma Ata, and required that mental health care be decentralized to all levels of the health care system, and delivered by all cadres of health staff rather than just mental health specialists. However, effective implementation of this policy was likely to be influenced by the degree to which the training, attitudes and practice of health staff was consistent with and supportive of the mental health policy.

OBJECTIVE

This article therefore reports a study conducted in 1997, which examined the training, attitudes and practice of district level health staff in relation to mental health care and compared them with the national mental health policy of 1994.

METHOD

A semi-structured questionnaire was sent to the medical superintendents of all district hospitals in Kenya, for distribution to respondents from each cadre of health staff. A total of 148 health workers from 28 districts out of 44 eligible districts (63%) responded.

RESULTS

District health workers did not think general health workers ought to manage most psychiatric patients, even if they were capable of doing so, preferring a system where these patients were managed by specialists and were not admitted into general wards. They also tended to equate mental illness with psychosis.

CONCLUSION

Despite their training in mental health care and their theoretical knowledge of the principles of Primary Health Care, the attitude and mental health care practice of most health workers were in keeping with a more medical model of health care, emphasising pharmacological treatment and expecting psychiatric patients to conform to the standard Sick Role. This orientation, being at variance with the orientation of the 1994 mental health policy, may have contributed to difficulties in implementation of the policy.

Nursing attitudes towards acute mental health care: development of a measurement tool

AIM

This paper reports the development, piloting and validation of a tool to measure attitudes for use with nursing staff working in acute mental health care units.

BACKGROUND

The quality of care provided for service users in acute mental health care has come under both scrutiny and severe criticism. The attitudes of staff working in these environments have been cited as a contributory factor in poor care. No measure of attitudes specific to acute mental health has been reported.

METHODS

A 64-question measure was constructed and distributed to a sample of qualified and unqualified nurses drawn from seven mental health care units in the North of England. Exploratory factor analysis and a number of other statistical tests were performed to validate the questionnaire.

RESULTS

Preliminary analysis reduced the original 64 questions to 37. Five components were retained, accounting for 42% of the variance, and the five rotated factors were identified. The resultant 'Attitudes Towards Acute Mental Health Scale' (ATAMHS) achieved good internal reliability, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.72.

CONCLUSION

The construction and validation of the ATAMHS measure will enable improved understanding of the attitudes of nursing staff working in acute mental health care settings to occur. This measure is available for use in a clinical area of nursing in which attitude change is of fundamental importance for future development of care.

Estrutura e programas de T&D: o caso das empresas públicas e sociedades de economia mista do Estado de Minas Gerais

No presente trabalho foram estudadas dez empresas públicas e sociedades de economia mista da esfera do Estado de Minas Gerais, de setores variados da economia, nas quais se analisaram indicadores de demonstrativos financeiros e se realizaram entrevistas semi-estruturadas com responsáveis pela área de treinamento e desenvolvimento de recursos humanos. Construiu-se uma escala de estrutura e programas de treinamento e desenvolvimento, com alto índice de fidedignidade. Observou-se a existência de três grupos distintos de empresas com estruturas e programas diversos e uma mudança nos padrões de treinamento e desenvolvimento de empresas públicas brasileiras, encontrados na literatura. Constatou-se a associação entre a complexidade das estruturas e programas e duas variáveis externas: a implantação de novas tecnologias de gestão e o perfil de escolaridade dos empregados.

Professional nurses' perception of nursing mentally ill people in a general hospital setting

The aim of this study was to explore professional nurses' perception of nursing mentally ill patients in a tertiary hospital in Durban. An explorative, qualitative, descriptive and contextual design was followed as the basis for conducting the study. The above-mentioned research design was achieved through field work conducted in an urban-based general hospital. A sample of 12 professional nurses was selected from a population of 800 professional nurses employed in this setting using a purposive sampling technique. This sample size was determined by saturation of data as reflected in repeating themes. Both individual phenomenological semistructured interviews and field notes in the form of observations were used as methods of data collection. The field work was conducted without any preset theoretical framework of reference by using bracketing and intuiting. During interviews, participants were asked only one research question, namely: 'How do you perceive nursing mentally ill patients in your unit or ward?' Communication skills were employed to encourage participants to verbalize their perception of nursing mentally ill patients in a general hospital setting. A tape recorder was used to collect data and the data was transcribed verbatim. Data collected was analysed following the descriptive method of Giorgi (1986). Coding was carried out by the researcher and an independent expert who is a psychiatric nursing specialist and a qualitative research expert. After data analysis, the results were reflected within universal categories of the Nursing for the Whole Person Theory in order to give them structure. The four themes that emerged from the findings are: perception of self, perception of a patient, perception of feelings that hinder nursing the mentally ill, and perception of the environment. The measures for ensuring trustworthiness proposed by Guba (Lincoln Y.S. & Guba E.G. (1985) Naturalistic Inquiry. Sage, Beverly Hills) were used as the basis for ensuring reliable and valid findings. The perception of nursing mentally ill people within a general hospital setting was negative and affected the intellectual and the affective component of the nurses' psychological functioning within their internal environment. It was recommended that nurses' knowledge and skills should be increased and that they should be given emotional support in terms of counselling.

Mental health knowledge and skills of general hospital nursing staff: an exploratory study

The psychiatric knowledge and skills of forty six nurses working in a general hospital in Bangalore, India were evaluated objectively using Multiple Choice Questionnaire (MCQ) and case vignettes. The results revealed that these general nurses had less than satisfactory mental health knowledge and skills. The findings highlighted the need for systematic in-service training for nursing staff in mental health problems.