Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Hanoi Medical University (HMU), Vietnam have been engaged since 2016 in a partnership, which they have both now cemented with a ten-year memorandum of understanding on an academic partnership to run from 2020 to 2030. The LEVERAGE VN project aims to systematically identify for the first time the attitudes and perspectives of relevant stakeholders and affected parties regarding the development of mental health provision in Viet Nam, which is being backed by the Vietnamese Government, and to work with all stakeholders to evaluate these attitudes and perspectives with a view to strengthening mental health care capacities.
Context:
Almost one billion people worldwide are affected by mental disorders. In low- and middle-income countries, as in Vietnam, there is a treatment shortfall of over 90%. Additionally, Vietnam also has a pronounced urban-rural divide when it comes to accessing good mental health care. The WHO estimates that one in five Vietnamese residents suffers from a mental disorder, such as depression, anxiety and schizophrenia, or increasingly prevalent neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementia. In most cases, these disorders have not been diagnosed and their treatment is rarely adequate. The latest UNICEF figures also indicate that 10 to 20% of children in Vietnam suffer from a mental disorder that significantly impacts their learning and development. In some cases, psychological illnesses can have serious consequences for the development of the individual, participation in society, subjective well-being and quality of life. The stigmatisation of mental disorders further compounds the situation for sufferers and their relatives and results in affected individuals being more reticent to take advantage of related health services, if there are any on offer.
Activities\/work packages:
- Development of operational capabilities for research and human and digital networking to develop long-term mental health capacities in both partner countries
- Mixed-method approaches (qualitative and quantitative) to recording the perspectives of stakeholders (such as patients, mental health professionals, MoH, MPI Viet Nam, etc.) on strengthening an integrated mental health system in Vietnam
- Processing and dissemination of the findings in a published peer review and through policy papers, as well as discussions of the findings among participants and interest groups
- Strengthening of academic and operational research and cooperation capacities on a process level at HMU, Charité and academic study centres nationally in Vietnam
Results:
The results help to improve local care structures and build on sustainable political support from the Vietnamese Government for upscaling mental health care in Vietnam at national level in cooperation with the partner country Germany. Systematic training in research methods also strengthens operational research collaboration and partner capacities in Vietnam in the long term.