Recently, the team of the USAID project «Public Health System Recovery and Resilience Activity» began to actively implement trainings on the clinical management of mental disorders under the mhGAP program for primary care doctors (family doctors, pediatricians, internists) and nurses.
mhGAP (Mental Health Gap Action Programme) is WHO’s global flagship program aimed at increasing access to mental health services by involving non-mental health professionals in the care of people with mental disorders.
The goal of training medical professionals is to form knowledge, skills and key competencies for providing future assistance to people with common mental disorders – depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal behavior, disorders related to the use of psychoactive substances, etc.
In the first half of February, five-day trainings were held in Ivano-Frankivsk and in the city of Storozhynets, Chernivtsi region: 19 medical workers from the Lysetsk and Kosiv communities and 28 from the Storozhynetsk community successfully completed the training and received certificates.
This week, trainings were held in parallel for 60 medical workers from 4 communities in Vinnytsia and Odesa. Their participants were primary care doctors and nurses from the Zhmerynska and Mohyliv-Podilska city-territorial communities of the Vinnytsia region; Mayakiv and Rozdilnian urban territorial communities of Odesa region.
During training, employees of first aid institutions learned, in particular, about:
- concepts and types of mental disorders,
- how physical and mental disorders are related,
- bridging the gap in mental health care,
- organization of an optimal combination of services in the field of mental health,
- building effective communication with the patient,
- detection and management of PNPR-disorders according to mhGAP protocols.
The «Public Health System Recovery and Resilience Activity» is funded by the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is implemented by the Pact organization in partnership with the Swiss Institute of Tropical Medicine and Public Health (Swiss TPH), Overseas Strategic Consulting (OSC), by the European Institute of Public Health Policy (EIPHP) and with the participation of the Schools of Public Health of Temple University, Drexel University and the Health Federation of Philadelphia (Temple/Drexel/HFP), as well as the public union “Coalition for Vaccination”.
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