Southern African Research Consortium for Mental Health Integration (S-MhINT)

Leadership

Contact Principal Investigator: Inge Petersen, Ph.D.
Principal Investigators: Deepa Rao, Ph.D., Arvin Bhana, Ph.D.

Hub Activity Sites

South Africa
Tanzania
Mozambique

Project Overview

The Southern African Research Consortium for Mental health INTegration (S-MhINT) is a research and capacity-building consortium that aims to use implementation science to strengthen regional mental health integration into primary health, antenatal, and chronic care platforms in under-resourced. The S-MhINT is made up of three core components including the Administrative Core, Scale-Up Study and Capacity Building. The Administrative Core aims to establish and engage a trans-disciplinary research consortium of academics, government representatives and non-governmental organizations in South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania to address the burden of common mental disorders in primary health care settings. The Administrative Core will manage all operations including developing monitoring systems for all S-MhINT activities and milestones, and a process evaluation of the partnership.

Implementation Research Study

The Scale-Up Study is designed to examine multi-level influences on the uptake, implementation, effectiveness, and sustainability of an existing evidence-based integrated mental health care package for chronic disorders project (MhINT). The study will examine these influences at the primary health care level in two different districts (Amajuba in KwaZulu-Natal province and Ehlanzeni in Mpumalanga province) in South Africa. The Scale-Up Study is the primary research focus of the S-MhINT Project.

Research Capacity Building

The capacity-building component will build implementation science and dissemination research capacity in South Africa, Mozambique, and Tanzania. The project will recruit service providers, managers, and policy makers as trainees, to provide real-world opportunities, mentorship and necessary knowledge. The aim is to have participants conduct optimal scale-up of evidence-based integrated mental health care.