Integrating Poverty and Gender into Health Programmes: A Sourcebook for Health Professionals Module on Mental Health

The set of modules that comprise this Sourcebook are intended for use in pre-service and in-service training of health professionals. This module on mental health is designed to improve the awareness, knowledge and skills of health providers on poverty and gender concerns. It is divided into six sections. Section 1 defines mental illness and general principles for the treatment of mental illness. Section 2 examines what the links are between poverty, gender and mental health focusing on depression and anxiety. Section 3 discusses why it is important for health professionals to address poverty and gender concerns in mental health, from efficiency, equity and human rights perspectives. Section 4 discusses how health professionals and the health care system can address poverty and gender concerns in mental health with the support of policy, legislation, programme planning, implementation and service delivery. Section 5 provides notes for training facilitators. Finally, section 6 is a collection of tools, resources and references, to support health professionals in their work in this field.