Project Overview
Asia Pacific Research for Mental Health Services (ASPIRE-MHS) is a network of researchers, service providers, and policy makers in Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Vietnam, Australia, and the United States. Working together, their goals are 1) to expand regional research capacity in implementation science, and 2) to evaluate the strategies and costs associated with bringing to scale a transdiagnostic psychotherapy program for common mental disorders. The scale-up implementation study is being conducted in Myanmar. Capacity-building activities are occurring in Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.
Implementation Research Study
The implementation research study is designed to identify effective organizational strategies for integrating an evidence-based mental health intervention into care across different types of provider agencies in Myanmar. The intervention is the Common Elements Treatment Approach (CETA), which is a transdiagnostic intervention that can be used by non-mental health professionals to treat individuals with depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress or any combination of these disorders. Multiple trials, including among Myanmar adults, have established the effectiveness of CETA for use in low-resource settings that rely on non-mental health specialist providers working within a supervised system. CETA uses principles of cognitive-behavior therapy, including engagement, psychoeducation, anxiety management, behavioral activation, cognitive restructuring, imaginal/gradual exposure, in vivo exposure, suicide/homicide assessment and planning, and cognitive-behavioral therapy for substance abuse.