August 2011
Excerpt: Gaps, Challenges and Opportunities
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Afghanistan faces a high burden of mental health problems, persistent stressors and limited mental health services.
- there are critical gaps in the response
- access and availability of mental health services remains limited
- available services are of low quality mental health services
- lack of trained skilled manpower for service delivery, (there are only two
internationally recognized psychiatrists in the country, and both of them do not
practice). - there are no trained clinical psychologists or psychiatric nurses
- lack of competent leadership and technical capacity to implement the mental
health strategy - lack of proper Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system and indicators to
measure success of mental health services - medicalisation of mental health problems, combined with poor quality of mental
health services has lead to irrational use of anti-depressants and benzodiazepines - inadequate financing of mental health and psychosocial interventions
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