Dorothy Kizza

TL;DR: A profile of the current mental health policy, legislation and services in Uganda was provided to provide an urgent need for more research on the current burden of mental disorders and the functioning of mental health programs and services.

TL;DR: The findings re-affirm the need to recognize material resources as a central element in the fight against stigma of mental illness, and the importance of stigma reduction programmes in protecting the mentally ill from social isolation, particularly in conditions of poverty.

TL;DR: In some Ugandan communities, help is mostly sought from traditional healers initially, whereas western form of care is usually considered as a last resort, and the factors found to influence help-seeking behaviour within the community include beliefs about the causes of mental illness, the nature of service delivery, accessibility and cost, stigma.

TL;DR: Although mental health is expected to be integrated into primary health care, mental health services in this district have not yet achieved the expected level of integration, which implies that this important policy requirement has not yet been effectively realized in this rural district.

TL;DR: This newly developed and validated module of the existing UN strategic planning OneHealth tool can be used, especially within the context of integrated health planning at the national level, to generate contextualised estimates of the resource needs, costs and health impacts of scaled-up mental health service delivery.