[Symposium 19] AFRICA SYMPOSIUM: WORKING WITH GOVERNMENT HEALTH SYSTEMS TO REDUCE THE TREATMENT GAP FOR MENTAL DISORDERS IN AFRICA

[SY-19] AFRICA SYMPOSIUM: WORKING WITH GOVERNMENT HEALTH SYSTEMS TO REDUCE THE TREATMENT GAP FOR MENTAL DISORDERS IN AFRICA

Itsuo Asai¹, Byamah Mutamba⁴, Muthoni Mathai³, Palmira Fortunato dos Santos², Akira Takada⁵ (1.Heart Clinic Medical Corporation(Japan), 2.National Institute of Health(Mozambique), 3.University of Nirobi(Kenya), 4.Butabika Hospital(Uganda), 5.Kyoto University(Japan))

Keywords:

Africa,Mental disorders,innovation,psychotherapy,treatment gap

This symposium was organized to explore the current situation and future of mental health care in Africa, where mental health resources are still inadequate, and to contribute to the consideration of the state of affairs in psychiatry.To gain an understanding of mental health and the general situation in African countries, Professor Takada of Kyoto University, who has extensive research experiences in the region, will give first an introduction to mental health and the general situation in the countries from which the speakers came, and then invite speakers from three sub-Saharan countries where mental health resources are insufficient. The three leading African researchers will talk about the current situation and the innovations they are working on in their respective fields.The first innovation, an intervention from Kenya was designed to treat Depression and PTSD in the public sector primary health care setting, presented by Professor Muthoni Mathai. Despite interventions by general practitioners, innovative interventions have been reported to achieve extremely high outcomes for depression and PTSD. By the second, a collaboration between health workers and persons with lived experience designed to strengthen services for persons living with Psychosis in Uganda will be presented by Dr. Byamah Mutamba and the third, a multilevel stakeholder in their communities’ consultative process to inform a pilot trial of couple-based interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT-C) for intimate partner violence in Mozambique, presented by Dr. Palmira Fortunato dos Santos.New African psychiatric initiatives that are innovating traditional methods and making scarce psychiatric resources more effective will inspire participants to improve their daily clinical practice and research.