Mental disorders are always remained a neglected public health problems in low and middle-income
countries (LMICs), most people with mental disorders never receive effective care and there is a large treatment gap. In order to solve the problem integration of mental health into primary health care is recommended and in Ethiopia implementation of the scale of mental health services at primary health care level was started in 2014. For the success of the integration of mental health into primary health care, primary care health professionals are the key personnel who are responsible for the management of mental, neurologic and substance use disorders. However, proper training and education of primary care health professionals is mandatory for an optimal performance and success of integration. This interventional study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of mental health training course for scale up of mental health services at primary health care level in Ethiopia.
Self-report of years of clinical experience and whether or not the respondent had received pre-service training in mental health care and whether or not the patient had experience in diagnosis and treatment of common mental, neurologic and substance use disorders. In addition, cases identified and treated post training at primary health care level by trained primary health care professionals were collected by the chart review after 3 months of the training.
The study resulted in a significant improvement in KAP of PHC workers about all the four mental, neurologic and substance use disorders during the post intervention survey. PHC workers showed significant increase post intervention in proportion of knowledge, attitude and practice related to common mental, neurologic and substance use disorders selected and implemented for scale and integration of mental health services into primary health care in Ethiopia. Training is a prerequisite and vital to enhance the knowledge, attitude, and practice of primary care professionals which plays a significant role for the easy success of integrated care and treatment of mental, neurologic and substance use disorders into the existing general health care services. The mail limitations of this study was failure discuss and compare the results with other previous studies due to lack adequate studies in the area.
The study results suggest that mental health training could be an effective intervention for improving knowledge, attitudes, and practices among primary health care professionals regarding mental, neurologic and substance use disorders. Training is a prerequisite and vital to enhance the knowledge, attitude, and practice of primary care professionals which plays a significant role for the easy success of integrated care and treatment of mental, neurologic and substance use disorders into the existing general health care services.
