Community Projects
Exploring the Relevance of Social Cognition Deficits to Functional outcome in Schizophrenia patients living in Rural Indian Communities
This project evaluates social cognition, neuro cognition and functioning of clinically stable Schizophrenia patients (rural community dwelling patients of Thirthahalli and Turuvekere taluks of Karnataka state, south India) and compare the same with those of urban dwelling patients attending a tertiary care hospital. Apart from the baseline comparison, a comparative prospective evaluation of all the recruited patients after six months also forms part of the project. 120 subjects were recruited from the rural cohort (Thirthahalli and Turuvekere Community) & 100 subjects from NIMHANS OPD. The baseline assessment of 220 patients has been completed and evaluated. Out of 220 patients from baseline assessment, 121 patients follow up assessment has been completed and the data has been evaluated and analysed. The project completion report and publication shall be completed by the end of June 2021.
Implementation and evaluation of NIMHANS-ECHO blended training program for work-force of the district mental health program in a rural south-Indian District
The objective of the project is to set up and evaluate a model training hub for ‘virtual-learning’ at the District Hospital, Ramanagara, Karnataka, India by implementing the NIMHANS-ECHO blended training program in three randomly selected PHC (Randomized Control Trial). Overall, 30 Online sessions were conducted for the non-doctor workforce (ASHA workers of 3 study PHCs). Online sessions concluded in November 2020. Sessions for PCDs were conducted by the Psychiatrists at NIMHANS. Sessions for PCDs are ongoing so far 5 sessions have been conducted. All ASHA workers (73 in number) were regularly contacted over telephonic calls to discuss their work in the community with respect to providing guidance and advice for mental health services and also addressing the challenges faced by them. JRFs carried out regular field visits post July to the PHCs and the Villages of the ASHA workers. All ASHA workers of study and control group undertook post assessment to assess their knowledge attitude and practices in Mental Health at the end of November 2020. Mental health screening tool has been developed for Community Health Workers (CHWs) to enable screening of mental illnesses in the community. ASHA workers have been trained to apply this tool and field testing is ongoing. One day Onsite training for the Primary care doctors of 6 PHCs of ramanagara District (Kotekoppa, VG. Doddi, DM Vaddi, Maniganahalli, Bevooru, Hosadurga) on 30th December 2020.
Community Psychiatry
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Email – nimhans.communitypsychiatry@gmail.com
Call- 9480829508