WHO releases guidelines on mental health care
Chioma Umeha The World Health Organisation has released new clinical protocols and guidelines to health care workers for treating the mental health consequences of trauma and loss. Mental disorders are common, disabling and usually untreated, and WHO’s Mental Health Global Action Programme (mhGAP) was developed in 2008 to scale up care for mental, neurological and substance use disorders with simple treatment protocols that could be offered by primary health care doctors and nurses. The clinical protocol and guidelines which was made available to the Ghana News Agency by Fadéla Chaib, WHO Spokesperson noted that the body is now extending the programme by including care for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), acute stress and bereavement within its global plan. It said traumatic events and loss are common in people’s lives; in a previous WHO study of 21 countries, more than 10 per cent of respondents reported witnessing violence (21.8 per cent) or experiencing interpers