Strengthening CAre in collaboration with People with lived Experience of psychosis in Uganda (SCAPE-U)
Wellcome Trust
George Washington University
Mental health services are most effective and equitable when designed, delivered, and evaluated in collaboration with people with lived experience of mental illness. Unfortunately, people with lived experience are rarely involved in health systems strengthening, and when they are, it is limited to specific components (e.g., peer helpers) rather than across-the-board collaboration in the continuum of health services. We are proposing a novel approach for collaboration with people with lived experience of psychosis that includes involvement at the primary care, community, and home settings. By collaborating on health systems strengthening across these multiple levels, we foresee a more in-depth contribution that can lead to rethinking how best to design and deliver care for people living with psychosis. We will pilot this multi-tiered collaboration with people with lived experience in Uganda because low-income countries represent the greatest gaps in access to evidence-based mental health care. We will conduct a pilot cluster randomized controlled trial of “Strengthening CAre in collaboration with People with lived Experience of psychosis in Uganda (SCAPE-U)”. We will train people with lived experience of psychosis using PhotoVoice and other methods to participate at three levels: primary health care, community and home level. The primary objective is to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of SCAPE-U. This pilot will also be used to prepare a future grant in which we will conduct a fully powered cluster randomized controlled trial that will evaluate health systems outcomes and service user outcomes, including quality of life, lower symptom severity, less disability, lower rates of relapse, and less hospitalization.
8.1 Organisation and delivery of services