Effectiveness of School Based Intervention for Promoting Mental Health Literacy Among Teachers: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Detailed Summary

Significantly higher prevalence of emotional and behavioural problems have been reported from Pakistan.This higher prevalence along with stigma of psychiatric problems and limited child \& adolescent mental health services in Pakistan means that it is important to consider alternate methods for promoting psychological and emotional well-being of our youth. Schools can thus act as a natural platform for mental health promotion as schools context has almost as much impact on students' emotional health as the family context. Teachers' role in the school mental health initiatives cannot be overemphasized. Teachers own knowledge and beliefs regarding mental health influence the way they respond to students mental health crisis. Recognizing the need for wider implementation of evidence based school mental health interventions in the region and to help in addressing the mental health literacy of educators in resource constrained settings, World Health Organization, Eastern Mediterranean Region (WHO-EMRO) has developed a concise and practical manual of school mental health in December 2014. In the absence of any "whole school approach" study from Pakistan focusing on teachers training and addressing all the various evidence based components of promotion of positive mental health, Investigators aim to conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial to assess effectiveness of training based on WHO-EMRO manual, in addition to its feasibility \& acceptability in improving teachers' mental health literacy and self-efficacy in dealing with students mental health issues. HYPOTHESIS: For teachers: * School mental health training intervention will significantly improve teacher's mental health literacy \& self-efficacy compared to wait list control group. * At 3 months follow-up, control group teachers' mental health literacy will also improve compared to baseline due to contamination of information provided, across groups within the same school. All hypothesis pertains to individual level. For students: Mental health training of teachers would lead to an overall improvement in student's outcome measure (student's emotional and behavioural difficulties) at 3 months follow-up.

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Interventions