Mental health and psychosocial support services for refugees delivered by community members
Citation: Cohen F, Yaeger L. Task-shifting for refugee mental health and psychosocial support: A scoping review of services in humanitarian settings through the lens of RE-AIM. Implementation Research and Practice. 2021;2:2633489521998790.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: The National Institute of Mental Health (USA).
What is this? In this scoping review, the authors searched for publications that assessed the effectiveness, implementation, and maintenance of mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSS) delivered by trained community members in migrant populations. They restricted their searches to populations living in low- or middle-income countries outside of their country of origin. The authors excluded serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. They searched in February 2020 and found 11 studies from Myanmar (4), Palestine (1), Rwanda (1), Somalia (2), South Sudan (1), Sri Lanka (1) and Syria (1).
What was found: Mental health and psychosocial support services delivered by lay counsellors in humanitarian settings in low- and middle-income countries improved mental health, particularly for post-traumatic stress disorder, suicide, depression, and general well-being. The long-term feasibility of MHPSS was limited by the high attrition rate of counsellors.
Implications: The authors stated that while MHPSS delivered by community counsellors can address mental health challenges faced by migrants, a stronger framework for implementation is needed. The framework should include criteria to support community counsellors.
Other considerations: The authors of the review did not discuss their findings in the context of issues relating to health equity.
This summary was written by Isabelle Tahmazian, checked by Sneha Bhadti and finalized by William Summerskill.