| Mental Health |
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Background The general view of mental illnesses is that their treatment requires institutional care. TRU, however, has been successfully applying its experience with community health activities to the field of psychiatry. Since 2004, 65% of mentally ill patients who reported to TRU have have been rehabilitated. This success rate prompted the training of CHC and PHC staff on the TRU model. Furthermore, the model was applied in Halol and Jambughoda blocks, where TRU set up the infrastructure and imparted training to ASHA workers.
Approach TRU established psychiatric OPDs at three locations in Halol and Jambughoda blocks, in addition to the OPD that had already been set up in Shivrajpur. A total of 236 villages and 1,90,000 people were surveyed, and approximately 80 ASHA workers and 8 PHCs participated in the mental health initiatives. Patients who had been off medication owing to various constraints were actively sought and offered follow up care and counseling. The aim was to understand why people went off medication and at what stage they considered themselves mentally fit to resume work. In addition, through surveys, an attempt was made to understand the triggers of mental illnesses. Most importantly, TRU conducted various programs to train ASHA workers to impart mental health initiatives. Response
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