TY - JOUR
AU - P. Ventevogel
A1 - 
AB - Abstract Since 2008 the World Health Organization (WHO), through its mental health Gap Action Programme, has attempted to revitalize efforts to integrate mental health into non-specialized (e.g. primary) healthcare. While this has led to renewed interest in this potential method of mental health service delivery, it has also prompted criticism. Some concerns raised are that it would contribute to the medicalization of social and psychological problems, and narrowly focus on primary care without sufficient attention given to strengthening other levels of the healthcare system, notably community-based care and care on district levels. This paper discusses seven elements that may be critical to preventing inadvertently contributing to increasing a narrow biomedical approach to mental healthcare when integrating mental health into non-specialized healthcare: (1) using task shifting approaches within a system of stepped care, (2) ensuring primary mental healthcare also includes brief psychotherapeutic interventions, (3) promote community-based recovery-oriented interventions for people with disabling chronic mental disorders, (4) conceptualizing training as a continuous process of strengthening clinical competencies through supervision, (5) engaging communities as partners in psychosocial interventions, (6) embedding shifts to primary mental healthcare within wider health policy reforms, and (7) promoting inter-sectoral approaches to address social determinants of mental health.
BT - International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
C5 - Healthcare Policy; Healthcare Disparities
CP - 6
CY - England
DO - 10.3109/09540261.2014.966067
IS - 6
JF - International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
N2 - Abstract Since 2008 the World Health Organization (WHO), through its mental health Gap Action Programme, has attempted to revitalize efforts to integrate mental health into non-specialized (e.g. primary) healthcare. While this has led to renewed interest in this potential method of mental health service delivery, it has also prompted criticism. Some concerns raised are that it would contribute to the medicalization of social and psychological problems, and narrowly focus on primary care without sufficient attention given to strengthening other levels of the healthcare system, notably community-based care and care on district levels. This paper discusses seven elements that may be critical to preventing inadvertently contributing to increasing a narrow biomedical approach to mental healthcare when integrating mental health into non-specialized healthcare: (1) using task shifting approaches within a system of stepped care, (2) ensuring primary mental healthcare also includes brief psychotherapeutic interventions, (3) promote community-based recovery-oriented interventions for people with disabling chronic mental disorders, (4) conceptualizing training as a continuous process of strengthening clinical competencies through supervision, (5) engaging communities as partners in psychosocial interventions, (6) embedding shifts to primary mental healthcare within wider health policy reforms, and (7) promoting inter-sectoral approaches to address social determinants of mental health.
PP - England
PY - 2014
SN - 1369-1627; 0954-0261
SP - 669
EP - 679
EP - 
T1 - Integration of mental health into primary healthcare in low-income countries: Avoiding medicalization
T2 - International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
TI - Integration of mental health into primary healthcare in low-income countries: Avoiding medicalization
U1 - Healthcare Policy; Healthcare Disparities
U2 - 25553784
U3 - 10.3109/09540261.2014.966067
VL - 26
VO - 1369-1627; 0954-0261
Y1 - 2014
ER -