Article type
Abstract
Background:
Mental health is paramount to personal well-being, family relationships, and successful contributions to society. Mental health inherently affects physical health and physical health affects mental health. It has been estimated by World Health Organization (WHO) that about 25% of the attendees at primary care suffered from one or more diagnosable psychiatric disorders. In India, burden of Mental disorders in India (with 1 in 7 Indians affected) and treatment gap is high (70-86%) due to poor community awareness, and limited trained manpower. To fill this gap, effective interventions implementable at the community levels are needed.
Objective:
To map the implementation research studies on mental health done in India.
Methods:
A systematic review was conducted to provide an overview and map implementation research in the area of mental health in India. PubMed, and Embase databases were searched. Websites of WHO, Indian Government Program Websites and relevant websites of private organizations, private public partnership organizations and non-governmental organizations engaged in implementation research were searched.
The search strategy initially identified 3382 articles, of these 3339 were excluded on the basis of screening of titles and abstracts. Remaining 43 were examined in full and another 25 were further excluded. The included 18 articles covered the overall domain of mental health in case of 12 articles, addiction and suicides were the topics for two articles each, and one article each on depression and psychotic disorders published between the year 2000 to 2021.
Results:
The implementation research projects on mental health ailments were either broad based covering mental health as an entity or addressing specific ailments rather than addressing the issue of common mental disorders. Most implementation research focused on community but not on larger levels i.e. government/structural level. Importantly, none focused on mental health professionals as intervention delivery target.
Conclusions
The studies covered a narrow territory of the vast country. The scope of the studies also was limited as there were hardly any study that comprehensively looked at all aspects of implementation research i.e. adoption, adherence, fidelity, effectiveness and cost effectiveness etc. indicating significant scope for improvement of implementation research in mental health.
Mental health is paramount to personal well-being, family relationships, and successful contributions to society. Mental health inherently affects physical health and physical health affects mental health. It has been estimated by World Health Organization (WHO) that about 25% of the attendees at primary care suffered from one or more diagnosable psychiatric disorders. In India, burden of Mental disorders in India (with 1 in 7 Indians affected) and treatment gap is high (70-86%) due to poor community awareness, and limited trained manpower. To fill this gap, effective interventions implementable at the community levels are needed.
Objective:
To map the implementation research studies on mental health done in India.
Methods:
A systematic review was conducted to provide an overview and map implementation research in the area of mental health in India. PubMed, and Embase databases were searched. Websites of WHO, Indian Government Program Websites and relevant websites of private organizations, private public partnership organizations and non-governmental organizations engaged in implementation research were searched.
The search strategy initially identified 3382 articles, of these 3339 were excluded on the basis of screening of titles and abstracts. Remaining 43 were examined in full and another 25 were further excluded. The included 18 articles covered the overall domain of mental health in case of 12 articles, addiction and suicides were the topics for two articles each, and one article each on depression and psychotic disorders published between the year 2000 to 2021.
Results:
The implementation research projects on mental health ailments were either broad based covering mental health as an entity or addressing specific ailments rather than addressing the issue of common mental disorders. Most implementation research focused on community but not on larger levels i.e. government/structural level. Importantly, none focused on mental health professionals as intervention delivery target.
Conclusions
The studies covered a narrow territory of the vast country. The scope of the studies also was limited as there were hardly any study that comprehensively looked at all aspects of implementation research i.e. adoption, adherence, fidelity, effectiveness and cost effectiveness etc. indicating significant scope for improvement of implementation research in mental health.