Hosted by the GPH Global Mental Health & Stigma Program
Family psychoeducation (FPE) is an evidence-based practice from high-income countries to help individuals with psychotic disorders and their relatives cope more effectively with illness. FPE has never been tested in a low-resource setting such as Tanzania where family involvement for illness management is fundamental. In this talk, Dr. Joy Noel Baumgartner will share results from a pilot clinical trial of a culturally tailored family psychoeducation model (“KUPAA”) for adults with psychotic disorders and their relatives.
UPAA was designed to be appropriate for settings where participants might have both traditional and biomedical ideas about mental illness and sustainability by including relatives as group co-facilitators. Pilot clinical trial objectives were to test impact on functioning, quality of life and relapse among an outpatient treatment-engaged population with schizophrenia. This presentation will highlight our main outcomes, cultural adaptation process, insights on the mechanisms of action for FPE (social support, hopefulness, stigma), and next steps for testing at a national scale.
About the Speaker:
Joy Noel Baumgartner, PhD is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work (SSW) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill with an adjunct appointment in the Gillings School of Public Health. As Director of the School of Social Work’s Global Mental Health Initiative, Dr. Baumgartner’s mixed methods research is grounded in the fields of psychiatric epidemiology, implementation science, and integrated service systems to inform, co-create, and evaluate novel global health interventions. She is a current PI or investigator on several NIH-funded grants and has published 80+ journal articles and pieces of engaged scholarship in global public health and social welfare. Her areas of expertise include strengthening the delivery of integrated health and social service interventions that address mental health, HIV prevention, reproductive health, maternal, child & adolescent health, and/or gender-based violence, largely in Eastern and Southern African countries.