Institute of Psychiatry holds final module of course

Rawalpindi
The Institute of Psychiatry and WHO Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Training and Research at Benazir Bhutto Hospital held the fourth and final module of a two-year course ‘Mental Health Services Research in a Humanitarian Context’ developed by South Asian Hub for Advocacy, Research and Education on Mental Health (SHARE).
The training course spanned a two-year period and comprised four modules, which took place for one week every six months. The fourth and final module ‘Evaluation and dissemination’ was held at the Institute at BBH after which a concluding meeting was organized to discuss the reflections on the course.
Dr. Paul Bolton from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health with support from Miss Anna Chiumento, a Ph D student at The University of Liverpool led the final module of the course.
This course delivered mental health and psychosocial research training to a cohort of locally based researchers and clinicians working in humanitarian settings. This course was aimed at producing a cohort of skilled researchers and practitioners able to make a significant contribution to mental health research in a humanitarian context across the South Asian region.
All the four modules of the course were comprised of class room based teaching and during the six months between the modules, each participant conducted independent research projects applying the knowledge, skills, attitudes and practices introduced to them during the module teaching. The research placements were supported by experienced locally-based mentors who provide country-specific guidance and support relating to the design and conduct of mental health research in complex settings.
The two-year course enrolled the first cohort of eight participants from Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The participants were enrolled from SHARE network partner institutions involved in mental health and psychosocial care in humanitarian 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.