title: Impact of mental health training on village health workers regarding clinical depression in rural India.
abstract: Village health worker (VHW) programs are known to be effective means of promoting health of communities. Comprehensive rural health project in India recently trained VHWs to identify, refer, and help people with mental health issues. This study evaluated knowledge, attitude, and behavior of VHWs regarding depression. Cluster sampling was used including all 36 VHWs trained in mental health. Among these, 24 were available and willing to participate in the study. Five FGDs were conducted among 24 VHWs, and the results were analyzed qualitatively. Four out of five groups were able to diagnose the presented case correctly as depression. VHWs were able to identify many symptoms and to suggest management options for depression. They showed supportive and empathetic attitudes towards depressed patients. VHWs are likely to be useful at identifying and assisting people with depression in the communities with lack of adequate resources provided they receive ongoing training and supervision.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, USA, paudel4sd@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Shreedhar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Paudel
authors.forename: Nadege
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gilles
authors.forename: Sigrid
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hahn
authors.forename: Braden
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hexom
authors.forename: Ramaswamy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Premkumar
authors.forename: Shobha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Arole
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Katz
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003150:Community Health Workers / Q000193:education*; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008603:Mental Health / Q000193:education*; D019035:Rural Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012424:Rural Population