Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

Get Happy, Get Rich The Relationship Between Depression and Poverty

Through six sessions of therapy, health workers help patients generate solutions to their psychosocial and financial problems, develop coping skills to reduce anxiety, and engage in activities that will assist them in recovering. (2015) … [Read more...] about Get Happy, Get Rich The Relationship Between Depression and Poverty

Minimizing death and ensuring high retention and good adherence remain ongoing challenges for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) treatment programs. We examined whether the addition of community-based accompaniment (characterized by daily home visits from a community health worker, directly observed treatment, nutritional support, transportation stipends, and other support as … [Read more...] about Improved Retention Associated With Community-Based Accompaniment for Antiretroviral Therapy Delivery in Rural Rwanda

There is limited evidence that interventions for depression and other common mental disorders (CMD) can be integrated sustainably into primary health care in Africa. We aimed to pilot a low-cost multi-component 'Friendship Bench Intervention' for CMD, locally adapted from problem-solving therapy and delivered by trained and supervised female lay workers to learn if was feasible … [Read more...] about Problem-solving therapy for depression and common mental disorders in Zimbabwe: piloting a task-shifting primary mental health care intervention in a population with a high prevalence of people living with HIV

Task shifting is a low-cost solution to tackling gaps in health services in the developing world, for example those in HIV and mental health treatment. The need for both is ever present. (2014) … [Read more...] about Task shifting explained: a viable solution to health worker shortage?

We examined whether the addition of community-based accompaniment to Rwanda's national model for antiretroviral treatment (ART) was associated with greater improvements in patients' psychosocial health outcomes during the first year of therapy. We enrolled 610 HIV-infected adults with CD4 cell counts under 350 cells/μL initiating ART in one of two programs. Both programs … [Read more...] about Community-based accompaniment and psychosocial health outcomes in HIV-infected adults in Rwanda: a prospective study