contexts in South Asia, said Head of Institute of Psychiatry Professor Fareed Aslam Minhas while talking to ‘The News’.
He added the participants of the first cohort belonged to Institute for Research and Development, Sri Lanka; Health Net TPO, Nepal; Human Development Research Foundation and Institute of Psychiatry, Pakistan.
According to him, the course has successfully equipped participants with key foundational principles of carrying out scientific research in humanitarian settings according to the DIME methodology (Design, Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation of Mental Health and Psychosocial Assistance Programs in Low Resource Contexts), a model developed by the Applied Mental Health Research Group Centre for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Professor Minhas said the participants gained hands-on experience of applying the theoretical principles of conducting qualitative need assessment, adaptation and validation of psychometric instruments and intervention development after conducting the steps of selection and adaptation.
Finally, in this fourth module the participants were introduced to the principles of testing the effectiveness of interventions using randomized controlled trials in particular, he said.
Talking of the research projects, he said the course participants have worked on diverse topics for their research projects including behavioral disorders in children in a community setting in Nepal; behavioral disorders of internally displaced orphan children in an orphanage and psychosocial problems of children faced with adversity in ‘madrassas’ in Pakistan; mental health problems of people faced with adversity (including war and internal displacement) in community settings in Peshawar, Swat and Sri Lanka.
After the training course, Professor of Child Psychiatry, University of Liverpool Dr. Atif Rahman and Dr. Minhas jointly chaired a meeting that was attended by the local mentors from Human Development Research Foundation HDRF, Khyber University, Institute of Psychiatry and all the participants. The objectives of the meeting were to review the course outcomes, way forward for the course was determined and an in depth feedback was obtained from the tutors, mentors and the participants.