Mental health response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya: a review

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Abstract

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted considerable impact on public mental health globally. With the pandemic rapidly rising in sub-Saharan Africa including Kenya, there is need to provide evidence to guide the mental health response in the region.

Objectives

The objective of this review is (1) to describe the mental health response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya, guided by the Mental Health Preparedness and Action Framework (2) to offer context specific recommendations for improvement of the mental health response in Kenya. Such information could be useful in decision-making in Kenya as well as in the greater sub-Saharan Africa region.

Methods

This narrative review is based on information obtained from official government documents released from 13th March 2020, the beginning of the pandemic in Kenya, up to 31st July 2020.

Discussion

The COVID-19 response in Kenya has no formal mental health response plan. There is an unmet need for psychological first aid in the community. While guidelines for the management of mental health conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic have been prepared, implementation remains a major challenge due to a poorly resourced mental health system. There is no mental health surveillance system in place limiting ability to design evidence-based interventions.

Conclusion

We propose four key strategies for strengthening the mental health response in order to mitigate the harmful impact of COVID-19 on public mental health in Kenya: (1) preparation of a formal mental health response plan specific to the COVID-19 pandemic with allocation of funding for the response (2) training of community health workers and community health volunteers on psychological first aid to enable access to support for those in need during the pandemic (3) scaling up of mobile health to increase access to care (4) conducting systematic and continuous text message surveys on the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to inform decision-making.

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Most cited references 5

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The Socio-Economic Implications of the Coronavirus and COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review

Maria R.C. Nicola, Zaid Alsafi, Catrin Sohrabi … (2020)

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over 1.4 million confirmed cases and over 83,000 deaths globally. It has also sparked fears of an impending economic crisis and recession. Social distancing, self-isolation and travel restrictions forced a decrease in the workforce across all economic sectors and caused many jobs to be lost. Schools have closed down, and the need of commodities and manufactured products has decreased. In contrast, the need for medical supplies has significantly increased. The food sector has also seen a great demand due to panic-buying and stockpiling of food products. In response to this global outbreak, we summarise the socio-economic effects of COVID-19 on individual aspects of the world economy.

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Preparedness and vulnerability of African countries against importations of COVID-19: a modelling study

Marius Gilbert, Giulia Pullano, Francesco Pinotti … (2020)

Summary Background The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic has spread from China to 25 countries. Local cycles of transmission have already occurred in 12 countries after case importation. In Africa, Egypt has so far confirmed one case. The management and control of COVID-19 importations heavily rely on a country's health capacity. Here we evaluate the preparedness and vulnerability of African countries against their risk of importation of COVID-19. Methods We used data on the volume of air travel departing from airports in the infected provinces in China and directed to Africa to estimate the risk of importation per country. We determined the country's capacity to detect and respond to cases with two indicators: preparedness, using the WHO International Health Regulations Monitoring and Evaluation Framework; and vulnerability, using the Infectious Disease Vulnerability Index. Countries were clustered according to the Chinese regions contributing most to their risk. Findings Countries with the highest importation risk (ie, Egypt, Algeria, and South Africa) have moderate to high capacity to respond to outbreaks. Countries at moderate risk (ie, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Angola, Tanzania, Ghana, and Kenya) have variable capacity and high vulnerability. We identified three clusters of countries that share the same exposure to the risk originating from the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, and the city of Beijing, respectively. Interpretation Many countries in Africa are stepping up their preparedness to detect and cope with COVID-19 importations. Resources, intensified surveillance, and capacity building should be urgently prioritised in countries with moderate risk that might be ill-prepared to detect imported cases and to limit onward transmission. Funding EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020, Agence Nationale de la Recherche.

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Early career psychiatrists’ perspectives on the mental health impact and care of the COVID-19 pandemic across the world

Ramdas Ransing, Frances N. Adiukwu, Victor Pereira-Sanchez … (2020)

Highlights • Mental health (MH) problems are difficult to address in pandemic and may have devastating consequence if remains untreated. • An appropriate conceptual framework can provide better opportunity to address the MH problems during epidemic. • Sixteen early career psychiatrists across the world attempted to develop a conceptual framework (CF). • CF can guide for development, implementation, and evaluation of MH interventions during the ongoing pandemic.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Florence Jaguga:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8381-6309

flokemboi@gmail.com

Edith Kwobah: eckamaru@gmail.com

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Int J Ment Health Syst

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Int J Ment Health Syst

Title: International Journal of Mental Health Systems

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1752-4458

Publication date (Electronic): 18 August 2020

Publication date PMC-release: 18 August 2020

Publication date Collection: 2020

Volume: 14

Electronic Location Identifier: 68

Affiliations

Moi Teaching & Referral Hospital, P.O. BOX 3-30100, Eldoret, Kenya

Author information

Florence Jaguga http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8381-6309

Article

Publisher ID: 400

DOI: 10.1186/s13033-020-00400-8

PMC ID: 7433266

PubMed ID: 32821271

SO-VID: 33e139d5-263e-4597-8ac3-e208e52414d7

License:

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

History

Date received : 1 June 2020

Date accepted : 11 August 2020

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Neurology

Keywords: covid-19,mental health,response,kenya,sub-saharan africa

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Neurology

Keywords: covid-19, mental health, response, kenya, sub-saharan africa

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Mental health response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya: a review

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Abstract

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Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19

Most cited references 5

The Socio-Economic Implications of the Coronavirus and COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review

Preparedness and vulnerability of African countries against importations of COVID-19: a modelling study

Early career psychiatrists’ perspectives on the mental health impact and care of the COVID-19 pandemic across the world

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