Consensus meeting develops roadmap to scale up depression care in diabetes

IslamabaD: An expert consensus meeting, titled tackling depression in diabetes, held here in a local hotel on Wednesday successfully built a consensus and co-developed a roadmap for implementing the findings, including how to scale up depression care in diabetes using a task-shifting approach to address the ‘treatment gap’ for mental health in Pakistan.

The consensus meeting with the main objective of planning how best to integrate depression care into non-mental health settings across Pakistan was jointly organised by Rawalpindi Medical University, Khyber Medical University, Aga Khan University, The Indus Hospital and Health Network, The Initiative in Pakistan, and the University of York in the United Kingdom.

The event was graced by the presence of Syed Mustafa Kamal, Federal Minister for National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination of Pakistan, as the chief guest and Mr. Mukhtar Ahmed Barath, State Minister for Health. The meeting brought together eminent policymakers, researchers, health professionals, community leaders, and implementation experts to share findings from world-leading, cutting-edge research from Pakistan on tackling depression in diabetes.

Well over 40 distinguished stakeholders, including international delegates from UK, USA and Afghanistan and local advocates involved in policy development, health systems, and research participated in the meeting. Their insights proved invaluable for planning implementation strategies and developing the necessary capacity in Pakistan to address depression in diabetes.

In the meeting, the participants reviewed key findings from the international research project ‘DiaDeM: Developing and Evaluating a Behavioural Activation Intervention for Individuals with Depression and Diabetes in South Asia,’ funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Programme. Behavioural Activation is a simple, culturally appropriate, and effective talking therapy for depression that can be administered by individuals who are not specialists in mental health.

The evidence from DiaDeM shows that behavioural activation is not only effective in reducing the severity of depression, it is also feasible and acceptable by people living with diabetes and depression in South Asia.

Professor Najma Siddiqi, Professor of Psychiatry at the Hull York Medical School, University of York, UK, and Chief Investigator of DiaDeM, highlighted that addressing depression in the context of diabetes is a high priority for Pakistan. However, she noted that there remains a considerable gap between the demand for effective treatments and the capacity to provide them.

She added that the consensus meeting provided an excellent opportunity for key stakeholders and decision-makers to come together to develop and agree on a plan to bridge this gap using resource-efficient, evidence-based therapies.