Social, Emotional and Economic Empowerment through Knowledge of Group Support Psychotherapy Project, Uganda

Abstract

The Social, Emotional and Economic empowerment through Knowledge of Group Support Psychotherapy (SEEK-GSP) project is implemented by Makerere University in collaboration with the Ministry of Health. The project aims at narrowing the treatment gap for depression among people living HIV using group support psychotherapy delivered by trained lay health workers in Northern Uganda. Globally, the advent of antiretroviral therapy has led to improved quality of life of people living with HIV (Mugavero et al., 2009; Oguntibeju, 2012), reduced HIV related death (UNAIDS, 2018) and reduced new HIV infections (Bavinton et al., 2018; Cohen et al., 2016; Rodger et al., 2016). However, Other HIV/AIDS related challenges like depression still prevail. Previous studies have found that people living with HIV are two to four times more likely to suffer from depression compared to the general population (Ciesla and Roberts, 2001; Do et al., 2014; Remien et al., 2019). In Uganda, the prevalence of depression among people living with HIV/AIDS is estimated to be between 9 - 25% (Kinyanda et al., 2017; Nakimuli-Mpungu et al., 2011). Despite this, most of HIV treatment facilities in Sub Saharaan Africa including Uganda do not screen for depression among people living with HIV.