Wasil Akash R, Osborn Tom L, Venturo-Conerly Katherine E, Wasanga Christine, Weisz John R
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Shamiri Institute, Nairobi, Nairobi County, Kenya.
Glob Ment Health (Camb). 2021 Mar 8;8:e8. doi: 10.1017/gmh.2021.7. eCollection 2021.
Mental health disorders are prevalent among youth and adolescents in low- and middle-income countries, and access to evidence-based treatments is poor. Although there is a great need for high-quality research to serve young people in low- and middle-income countries, there is limited guidance available for researchers who wish to conduct such work. Here, we describe our process of conducting school-based youth mental health work in Kenya over the last several years. We focus on five key lessons we learned that could guide future global mental health work with youth: (a) reducing stigma with strengths-focused interventions, (b) expanding access by working in schools, (c) generating buy-in from local stakeholders, (d) adapting the intervention via multicultural collaboration, and (e) applying insights from low- and middle-income countries to serve young people in high-income countries. We conclude by discussing how these lessons, and those shared by other teams, can be applied to help reduce the treatment gap for young people around the world.
心理健康障碍在低收入和中等收入国家的青少年中普遍存在，而且获得循证治疗的机会很少。尽管非常需要高质量的研究来服务低收入和中等收入国家的年轻人，但对于希望开展此类工作的研究人员而言，可用的指导却很有限。在此，我们描述过去几年在肯尼亚开展基于学校的青少年心理健康工作的过程。我们重点介绍我们学到的五个关键经验教训，这些经验教训可为未来全球青少年心理健康工作提供指导：(a) 通过以优势为重点的干预措施减少污名化；(b) 通过在学校开展工作扩大服务可及性；(c) 获得当地利益相关者的支持；(d) 通过多元文化合作调整干预措施；(e) 运用低收入和中等收入国家的见解来服务高收入国家的年轻人。我们最后讨论如何应用这些经验教训以及其他团队分享的经验教训，以帮助缩小全球青少年的治疗差距。
