Mental health care

Community Health Worker Interventions for Identifying and Managing Antenatal Depression: A Cluster-Linked Implementation Study

This study tested whether community health workers (CHWs) could help identify and support pregnant women with depression in rural areas. CHWs were trained to screen women, offer simple counseling, and refer serious cases to health facilities. They screened nearly 1,000 women, and about one in four showed signs of depression. Most accepted and completed the counseling sessions. … [Read more...] about Community Health Worker Interventions for Identifying and Managing Antenatal Depression: A Cluster-Linked Implementation Study

Dementia care is difficult in rural parts of Latin America, where tools for diagnosis often don’t work well because they are not designed with local needs in mind. This study looked at how working closely with community health workers and local healthcare staff in rural Peru helped create a mobile app to screen for dementia. Over 18 months, the team used feedback from the … [Read more...] about Design and Development of a mHealth Dementia Screening Tool in Resource-Limited Settings: Lessons Learned from Designing for and with Community Health Workers in Peru

This study looked at how social isolation affects the mental well-being of older adults. It found that being socially isolated lowers well-being, but staying physically active and being emotionally strong can help reduce this negative impact. These two factors, physical activity and resilience, explain much of the link between isolation and poor mental health. The study … [Read more...] about Chain Mediating Effect of Physical Activity and Psychological Resilience on Social Isolation and Psychological Well-Being in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

This study looked at how village health volunteers (VHVs) in rural Thailand support people with mental health needs. Interviews with VHVs, nurses, caregivers, and a person with lived experience showed that VHVs mostly focus on physical health and have little training or support for mental health care. Challenges include stigma, heavy workloads, and lack of mental health … [Read more...] about Supporting healthcare in rural communities in Thailand: An exploratory qualitative study to understand the role and current mental health practices of village health volunteers

This study looked at how gender, race, and education affect the involvement of community health workers in mental health support teams in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Most community health workers were Black women with high school education, while most mental health professionals were white women with college degrees. These differences led to unequal relationships and often excluded … [Read more...] about An intersectional analysis of the participation of community health workers in matrix support in mental health