Developing research capacity for mental health interventions for youth in Haiti

描述(由申请人提供)：发展海地青年心理健康干预的研究能力摘要：2010年海地太子港附近发生地震后，广泛和灾难性的破坏和伤亡给本已紧张的海地精神卫生保健提供资源带来了前所未有的严重负担。创伤暴露和新的心理社会逆境，包括流离失所、失去工作和学校，以及供应和服务的严重中断，预计将导致海地人口各阶层精神障碍的患病率和严重性增加。预期的特殊需求将要求对不可避免的有限资源进行审慎和战略性的分配。开发新的、有经验支持的模式来扩展稀缺的精神卫生保健资源，可以利用这些模式扩大海地人口的覆盖面和受益范围。在海地建立必要的精神卫生服务的内在要求是进一步发展当地的研究能力，为海地有效的精神卫生保健提供战略奠定经验基础。拟议工作的总体目标是加强和扩大在海地提供医疗保健的非政府组织赞米·拉桑特(Zanmi Lasante)和哈佛医学院(HMS)之间现有的机构合作，以便在海地开展流行病学、社会科学和精神障碍执行研究方面的地方和协作能力。我们建议通过协调需求评估、基于互惠教学研讨会的培训，以及包括设计、实施和评估海地中部一种新的以学校为基础的青少年心理健康干预措施的实践，来实现这一目标。这一干预措施可能会加强学校对有精神障碍风险的青少年的发现，然后利用教师作为精神健康的同伴，支持青少年获得适当的护理。如果可行、可接受和有效，可以在未来的研究中研究这种干预措施是否有可能改善海地青年的精神健康结果，这也将进一步发展和巩固ZL/HMS在海地精神障碍方面的合作研究能力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Developing research capacity for mental health interventions for youth in Haiti Abstract: The widespread and catastrophic destruction and casualties following the 2010 earthquake centered near Port-au-Prince, Haiti imposed an acute and unprecedented burden upon already strained Haitian mental health care delivery resources. Traumatic exposures and new psychosocial adversities, including displacement from homes, jobs, and schools and major disruptions in supplies and services, are expected to result in increased prevalence and severity of mental disorders in all sectors of the Haitian population. The anticipated extraordinary need will demand prudent and strategic allocation of inevitably limited resources. Development of novel, empirically-supported models for extending scarce mental health care resources can leverage them for greater coverage and benefit within the Haitian population. Intrinsic to building requisite mental health services in Haiti, is the further development of local research capacity that can advance the empirical base for effective mental health care delivery strategies in Haiti. The overarching aim of the proposed work is to strengthen and extend an existing institutional collaboration between Zanmi Lasante (ZL), a non-governmental organization delivering health care in Haiti, and Harvard Medical School (HMS), in order to develop local and collaborative capacity for epidemiologic, social science, and implementation research on mental disorders in Haiti. We propose to achieve this aim through coordinating needs assessment, reciprocal didactic seminar based training, and a practicum that encompasses design, implementation, and evaluation of a novel school-based youth mental health intervention in central Haiti. This intervention will potentially enhance school-based detection of youth at risk for mental disorders and then utilize teachers as mental health accompagnateurs to support youth access to appropriate care. If feasible, acceptable, and effective, this intervention can be studied for its potential to improve mental health outcomes for Haiti's youth in future research that will also further develop and consolidate ZL/HMS collaborative research capacity for mental disorders in Haiti.