Podcast: Talking therapy for the management of mental health in low- and middle-income countries affected by mass human tragedy

Evidence Aid, an organisation dedicated to improving the use of evidence in humanitarian crises, highlights information from Cochrane and other systematic reviews of particular relevance to those involved in humanitarian assistance and, in July 2018, these were added to by a report on psychological therapies for the treatment of mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries. We asked one of the authors, Marianna Purgato from the University of Verona in Italy, to tell us about this new Cochrane Review." Whether a humanitarian crisis is triggered by natural hazards or other events, people affected by it in low- and middle-income countries are exposed to many stressors that make them more vulnerable to mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and anxiety. They are also more at risk of other negative psychological outcomes.  Various types of psychological therapy are available to try to manage these conditions, including different forms of cognitive-behavioural therapy, or CBT, including CBT with a trauma focus, Brief Behavioural Activation, narrative exposure therapy, the common elements treatment approach and several others. It ’s important, therefore, to know how effective and acceptable these therapies are and we did our review to investigate this for people with mental disorders who are living in humanitarian crises in low- and middle-income countries.We included 33 randomised trials, involving more than 3500 participants.   The...
Source: Cochrane News and Events - Category: Information Technology Authors: Source Type: news