Featured Review: Do psychological and social interventions prevent mental health disorders in low ‐ and middle‐income countries affected by humanitarian crises?

Cochrane Review: Psychological and social interventions for the prevention of mental disorders in people living in low ‐ and middle‐income countries affected by humanitarian crisesMental health disorders are among the leading contributors to all years lived with disability. Prevention strategies offer new possibilities to reduce their disease burden, given that many risk factors for mental health conditions have social and/or environmental roots, such as gender-based violence, poverty, unemployment, social marginalization, and lack of education. This is especially true for people living in low- and middle-income countries affected by armed conflicts and social catastrophes triggered by inauspicious events.Most of the consequences of humanitarian crises on mental health ranges from transient acute stress reactions, to chronic subthreshold distress manifestations, to the establishment of a full-blown mental disorders. Interventions focused on prevention of mental health disorders usually target modifiable causal factors that contribute to the development of psychological symptoms. Specifically, prevention ' psychosocial ' interventions are aimed at decreasing risk factors for the development of mental disorders or at building resilience and increasing a sense of hope and safety to protect against psychological symptom developmentIn this review the researchers of theCochrane Global Mental Health (CGMH) network, asked whether psychosocial interventions were efficacious in pr...

Source: Cochrane News and Events - October 5, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: Muriah Umoquit Source Type: news