Mental health care in Eastern Europe and Central Asia: An analysis of needs and a call for greater investment

Hook, Kimberly; Bogdanov, Sergiy

doi:10.1016/j.lanepe.2021.100182

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…We also provide validation in the Ukrainian context of much-needed non-invasive tools required for screening mental health [4,5]. The existence of our data provides evidence of the methodological possibility to systematically identify, and reach out to, war-conflict-affected people seeking help across borders for telemental and online help [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…We also provide validation in the Ukrainian context of much-needed non-invasive tools to screen for mental health conditions [4,5]. The WHO-5 [13], MHI-5 [14], and K6 [15] scales were translated from English to Ukrainian by a leading researcher and then back-translated by a research assistant.…”

Section: Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the case of the 5-item scale MHI-5, each item was scored from 1 (none of the time) to 6 (all of the time). The score from each item was summed up (ranging from 1 to 30) and the minimum possible score (5) was subtracted. As the last step, the score was divided by 25 (possible score range) and multiplied by 100.…”

Section: Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Robust quantitative analysis is needed to understand the (mental) health conditions of the conflict-affected population [3]. The need for a uniform assessment is particularly pressing given that the Ukrainian mental health situation was a blind spot even before the invasion [4,5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mental Health and Stress Level of Ukrainians Seeking Psychological Help Online

Noha

Asanov

Buenstorf

2022

Preprint

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We screen the mental well-being and psychological distress of 1165 refugees, migrants, internally displaced, and non-displaced people from Ukraine who seek psychological help online in Ukraine and across 24 countries of the European Union. We see that more than half of the respondents exhibit low levels of mental well-being and high psychological distress, with 81% being at risk of depression and 57% having severe psychological distress. Refugees and internally displaced people in our sample show a particularly high risk of depression and severe psychological distress. Nevertheless, the majority of Ukrainians seeking psychological help still work, study, or volunteer, and those who do have relatively alleviated mental levels of well-being.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mental Health and Stress Level of Ukrainians Seeking Psychological Help Online

Noha

Asanov

Buenstorf

2022

Preprint

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“…Roundtables` methodology aimed to achieve ve overarching tasks. Each task was designed to deal with the most signi cant issues in community perception of mental health (Eaton et al, 2011;Hook & Bogdanov, 2021).…”

Section: Social Services 24mentioning

confidence: 99%

Decentralisation and community engagement for better mental health services development in the conflict-affected regions of Ukraine

Klymchuk¹,

Vysotska²,

Gorbunova

2022

Preprint

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how conflict-affected communities in Ukraine (the Lugansk region) can develop sustainable mental health services in decentralised settings. The main interest focuses on communities' perception of their problems and solutions that communities can create to achieve better mental health coverage. Design/methodology/approachSeries of roundtables (4 roundtables, 62 participants overall), accompanied by interactive brainstorming techniques, were conducted with communities' representatives from the East of Ukraine (Lugansk region, government-controlled area). Participants were provided with the opportunity to discuss mental health services development challenges and create affordable solutions for their communities. Results of discussions were submitted to qualitative analysis and offered to review by participants. FindingsDecentralisation in Ukraine led to allocating funds alongside responsibilities for developing the services to communities. Most of the communities appear not to be ready to acknowledge the role of mental health services, entirely relying on the existing weak psychiatric hospital-based system. Rising-awareness interactive capacity-building activities for the community leaders and decision-makers effectively promote community-based mental health services development. Five clusters of challenges were identified: leadership, coordination, and collaboration problems; infrastructure, physical accessibility, and financial problems; mental health and primary healthcare workforce shortage and lack of competencies; low awareness in mental health, available services, and high stigma; war, crises, and pandemic-related problems. Communities foresaw seven domains of actions: increasing the role of communities and service users in the initiatives of governmental bodies; establishing in the communities local coordination/working groups dedicated to mental health service development; developing the community-based spaces (hubs) for integrated services provision; embedding the mental health services in the existing services (social, administrative, healthcare); mental health advocacy and lobby lead by local leaders and service users; increasing capacity of communities in financial management, fundraising; developing of services by combining efforts and budgets of neighbouring communities. OriginalityThe paper is original in terms of its topic (connecting decentralisation and community engagement for understanding the challenges of mental health services development) and research strategy (engagement of Ukrainian communities, qualitative analysis of the discussion results and applying the best practices and international recommendations to the local context).

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