Reinforcement mental health training in nursing education in Kigoma

When thinking about health challenges in low-income countries, diseases like tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other tropical diseases quickly come to mind, but few think of mental health problems. In fact, according to the WHO, three-quarters of those afflicted with mental disorders live in developing countries. Violence, human rights abuses, poverty, gender inequality and low levels of education all exacerbate mental health problems (Fracarita International).

In the Kigoma Region in Tanzania, there are only two mental health care facilities with 42 beds in total. This is the only available mental health care for a region of 37.000 km² with 1.6 million inhabitants. Moreover, there are hardly no qualified healthcare workers available. The region has one school of nursing with a capacity of 250 students. By establishing a stronger cooperation between higher education and practice this projects intents to reinforce the quality and quantity of the available mental health nurses. We aim to achieve this by improving the image of mental health nursing and by renewing the content and didactics of the curriculum and the internships.