Below we share outputs and resources from the IMPASS Study. These vary from academic publications, policy outputs, training and capacity building outputs, to research communication activities.
Policy Outputs
Research-Policy Forum report - BangladeshStakeholder Workshop on the physical health of people living with severe mental illness including effect of COVID-19 pandemic and its responses in Bangladesh: What has been done so far and way forward
ARK Foundation in partnership with National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and with the technical support of Department of Health Science, University of York is implementing IMPACT SMI and IMPASS research study targeting people living with severe mental illness (SMI). As part of these research studies a stakeholder workshop was organized as on Monday, June 20, 2022, at NIMH, Dhaka. The workshop aimed to share and discuss overview of the IMPASS and IMPACT SMI study for raising awareness on the physical health of people living with severe mental illness (SMI) including effect of COVID-19 pandemic and its responses on SMI and their family members.
Findings from the workshop participants’ discussion and suggestions and insights of this research study will be helpful to design recovery-centric intervention programmes for SMI patients, increase capacity, quality of life, and develop skills on different activities. As there is limited information on physical illnesses and health risk behaviors in people with SMI in low and middle-income countries, these studies are very crucial to determine the actual scenario of physical health along with mental health within these countries and take measures accordingly.
Workshop Participants
A diverse group of potential stakeholders attended the workshop from Government, Non-Government and Development Partner organizations.
From Government Organization:
Specifically, the following honorable dignitary stakeholders attended: Joint Secretary and Chief Coordinator of NDD (Neuro-developmental disorder) and Autism Cell under Health Services Division, Programme Manager – Mental health of Non-Communicable Disease Control (NCDC) Programme under Directorate General of Health Services, Chairman, Dept. of Psychiatry, BSMMU, Director, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), General Secretary Bangladesh Association of Psychiatry[1], Former Director Primary Health Care, DGHS.
Other Stakeholders from Government Organization: Associate Professor, Registrar from NIMH, National Institute of Neuroscience Hospital, Programme Manager from Community Based Healthcare Programme, Assistant Health Officer and Programme Officer of Dhaka North City Corporation, Psychiatrists from NIMH.
From Development partner and Non-Government Organization: National Mental Health Consultant of WHO, representative from development partner Civil Society Organizations Sajida Foundation.
Policy Brief
A Policy Brief published on the ARK Foundation website was prepared by Prof. Rumana Huque, Asiful Haidar Chowdhury, Fariha Islam Munia on behalf of IMPASS study Research Team in Bangladesh
Read the complete workshop Policy Brief
Research-Policy Forum report - PakistanPeople with SMI are among the most vulnerable populations. The 20 to 30 years mortality gap between people with SMI and the general population is clearly a public health concern and the question arises what are we doing about it?
The IMPASS team held a Research-Policy Forum in Pakistan on 23rd June, 2022, organized by the Institute of Psychiatry (IOP), Rawalpindi Medical University (RMU) and the IMPASS research team. Prof Dr Asad Tamizuddin Nizami, the head Institute of Psychiatry, RMU hosted the meeting along with Dr Amina Khan, IMPACT-IMPASS Programme Manager.
At the forum the group discussed that tackling the mortality gap between people with SMI and the general population is not insurmountable. We learnt from the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic that this is possible as in Pakistan 77% of people with SMI were vaccinated which was higher than the general population shown from the survey. Therefore, it is evident that if we put our minds to it we can address this gap and inequality.
Nevertheless, issues like access to healthcare and access to medication needed to be addressed during Covid-19 pandemic.
Two things which were really very positive:
- Essential Package of health services (EPHS).
- Digital health framework which is going to provide further help to identify inequity and can be addressed through the EPHS.
Implementing the above two in the next few years will make a huge difference. But it will only make a difference for people with SMI, if we are able to remove
any barriers to access to health care.
The forum was attended by 21 participants, including 7 policymakers, 8 researchers and 6 clinicians. A summary report was prepared to record the recommendations of the forum by Dr Amina Khan and Humaira Khalid on behalf of IMPASS Research Team.
Read the Forum Report
Stakeholder Workshop on the physical health of people living with severe mental illness including effect of COVID-19 pandemic and its responses in Bangladesh: What has been done so far and way forward
ARK Foundation in partnership with National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and with the technical support of Department of Health Science, University of York is implementing IMPACT SMI and IMPASS research study targeting people living with severe mental illness (SMI). As part of these research studies a stakeholder workshop was organized as on Monday, June 20, 2022, at NIMH, Dhaka. The workshop aimed to share and discuss overview of the IMPASS and IMPACT SMI study for raising awareness on the physical health of people living with severe mental illness (SMI) including effect of COVID-19 pandemic and its responses on SMI and their family members.
Findings from the workshop participants’ discussion and suggestions and insights of this research study will be helpful to design recovery-centric intervention programmes for SMI patients, increase capacity, quality of life, and develop skills on different activities. As there is limited information on physical illnesses and health risk behaviors in people with SMI in low and middle-income countries, these studies are very crucial to determine the actual scenario of physical health along with mental health within these countries and take measures accordingly.
Workshop Participants
A diverse group of potential stakeholders attended the workshop from Government, Non-Government and Development Partner organizations.
From Government Organization:
Specifically, the following honorable dignitary stakeholders attended: Joint Secretary and Chief Coordinator of NDD (Neuro-developmental disorder) and Autism Cell under Health Services Division, Programme Manager – Mental health of Non-Communicable Disease Control (NCDC) Programme under Directorate General of Health Services, Chairman, Dept. of Psychiatry, BSMMU, Director, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), General Secretary Bangladesh Association of Psychiatry[1], Former Director Primary Health Care, DGHS.
Other Stakeholders from Government Organization: Associate Professor, Registrar from NIMH, National Institute of Neuroscience Hospital, Programme Manager from Community Based Healthcare Programme, Assistant Health Officer and Programme Officer of Dhaka North City Corporation, Psychiatrists from NIMH.
From Development partner and Non-Government Organization: National Mental Health Consultant of WHO, representative from development partner Civil Society Organizations Sajida Foundation.
Policy Brief
A Policy Brief published on the ARK Foundation website was prepared by Prof. Rumana Huque, Asiful Haidar Chowdhury, Fariha Islam Munia on behalf of IMPASS study Research Team in Bangladesh
Read the complete workshop Policy Brief
People with SMI are among the most vulnerable populations. The 20 to 30 years mortality gap between people with SMI and the general population is clearly a public health concern and the question arises what are we doing about it?
The IMPASS team held a Research-Policy Forum in Pakistan on 23rd June, 2022, organized by the Institute of Psychiatry (IOP), Rawalpindi Medical University (RMU) and the IMPASS research team. Prof Dr Asad Tamizuddin Nizami, the head Institute of Psychiatry, RMU hosted the meeting along with Dr Amina Khan, IMPACT-IMPASS Programme Manager.
At the forum the group discussed that tackling the mortality gap between people with SMI and the general population is not insurmountable. We learnt from the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic that this is possible as in Pakistan 77% of people with SMI were vaccinated which was higher than the general population shown from the survey. Therefore, it is evident that if we put our minds to it we can address this gap and inequality.
Nevertheless, issues like access to healthcare and access to medication needed to be addressed during Covid-19 pandemic.
Two things which were really very positive:
- Essential Package of health services (EPHS).
- Digital health framework which is going to provide further help to identify inequity and can be addressed through the EPHS.
Implementing the above two in the next few years will make a huge difference. But it will only make a difference for people with SMI, if we are able to remove
any barriers to access to health care.
The forum was attended by 21 participants, including 7 policymakers, 8 researchers and 6 clinicians. A summary report was prepared to record the recommendations of the forum by Dr Amina Khan and Humaira Khalid on behalf of IMPASS Research Team.
Read the Forum Report
Learning Outputs
Online workshop - 'Getting Research into Policy & Practice'The IMPASS team arranged a half-day online workshop for researchers about “Getting Research into Policy & Practice” led by Dr Zafar Mirza.
Dr Zafar Mirza is a former Pakistani politician who served as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Health and is currently serving as a Professor of Health System and Population Health at Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University (STMU) in Islamabad. He has long standing experience of working at national, regional and global levels in public and private health sectors.
Dr Zafar Mirza has also served as the Director of Health System Development at the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean. He is a medical doctor with post-graduation in Public Health in Developing Countries from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a clinical stint in mental health.
The workshop was help via Zoom on Friday 24th March. It was carefully designed to help researchers to understand how to incorporate research into the policy making. Aiming to support and engage more researchers in producing policy appropriate research and contribute to the health policy making.
The workshop was aimed at researchers from or collaborating with the Centre for IMPACT and/or the IMPASS Study.
Download workshop flyer
The IMPASS team arranged a half-day online workshop for researchers about “Getting Research into Policy & Practice” led by Dr Zafar Mirza.
Dr Zafar Mirza is a former Pakistani politician who served as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Health and is currently serving as a Professor of Health System and Population Health at Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University (STMU) in Islamabad. He has long standing experience of working at national, regional and global levels in public and private health sectors.
Dr Zafar Mirza has also served as the Director of Health System Development at the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean. He is a medical doctor with post-graduation in Public Health in Developing Countries from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a clinical stint in mental health.
The workshop was help via Zoom on Friday 24th March. It was carefully designed to help researchers to understand how to incorporate research into the policy making. Aiming to support and engage more researchers in producing policy appropriate research and contribute to the health policy making.
The workshop was aimed at researchers from or collaborating with the Centre for IMPACT and/or the IMPASS Study.
Download workshop flyer
Research Communication
Social media campaign visual assetsIn February 2023, the IMPASS study launched a social media campaign to raise the profile of the project.
Below are some of the visuals developed to support the awareness raising activities:
IMPASS study promotional leafletsThe team have developed printed leaflets about the IMPASS Study for distribution at conferences, events and to non-academic partners to promote awareness and understanding of the IMPASS Study.
Download IMPASS promotional leaflet (1)
Download IMPASS promotional leaflet (2)
Dawn news article - Physical health of mentally illAn important article written by Dr Zafar Mirza was published in Dawn on 24th March 2023 putting physical health of mentally ill in the spotlight. The article highlighted that more often than not, physical illness accompaniments in mentally ill people are ignored.
Read the Dawn article
We know the high mortality rate among people with mental illness is not due to mental illness per se, rather it is the result of the coexistence or co-morbidity of physical health problems, such as cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic and infectious diseases and cancer. As the article notes, many Dawn readers might find it surprising to know that people with mental illness don’t live as long than the general population.
The article goes on to reference the important research that continues to be done by our research teams in South Asia, for example where the physical problems of mentally ill patients, including those with severe mental illness is being studied in the wake of Covid-19 by the IMPASS Study.
The work of the Centre continues to improve our understanding of how to protect physical health in people with mental illness. Dr Zafar Mirza’s article recognized essential work from members of the IMPACT team who, as part of the Lancet Psychiatry Commission in 2019, published “a blueprint for protecting physical health in people with mental illness”.
Firth J, Siddiqi N, Koyanagi A, et al. The Lancet Psychiatry Commission: a blueprint for protecting physical health in people with mental illness. Lancet Psychiatry. 2019;6(8):675-712. doi:10.1016/S2215-0366(19)30132-4
Dr Zafar Mirza is a former Pakistani politician who served as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Health and is currently serving as a Professor of Health System and Population Health at Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University (STMU) in Islamabad. He has long standing experience of working at national, regional and global levels in public and private health sectors.
In February 2023, the IMPASS study launched a social media campaign to raise the profile of the project.
Below are some of the visuals developed to support the awareness raising activities:
The team have developed printed leaflets about the IMPASS Study for distribution at conferences, events and to non-academic partners to promote awareness and understanding of the IMPASS Study.
Download IMPASS promotional leaflet (1)
Download IMPASS promotional leaflet (2)
An important article written by Dr Zafar Mirza was published in Dawn on 24th March 2023 putting physical health of mentally ill in the spotlight. The article highlighted that more often than not, physical illness accompaniments in mentally ill people are ignored.
Read the Dawn article
We know the high mortality rate among people with mental illness is not due to mental illness per se, rather it is the result of the coexistence or co-morbidity of physical health problems, such as cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic and infectious diseases and cancer. As the article notes, many Dawn readers might find it surprising to know that people with mental illness don’t live as long than the general population.
The article goes on to reference the important research that continues to be done by our research teams in South Asia, for example where the physical problems of mentally ill patients, including those with severe mental illness is being studied in the wake of Covid-19 by the IMPASS Study.
The work of the Centre continues to improve our understanding of how to protect physical health in people with mental illness. Dr Zafar Mirza’s article recognized essential work from members of the IMPACT team who, as part of the Lancet Psychiatry Commission in 2019, published “a blueprint for protecting physical health in people with mental illness”.
Firth J, Siddiqi N, Koyanagi A, et al. The Lancet Psychiatry Commission: a blueprint for protecting physical health in people with mental illness. Lancet Psychiatry. 2019;6(8):675-712. doi:10.1016/S2215-0366(19)30132-4
Dr Zafar Mirza is a former Pakistani politician who served as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Health and is currently serving as a Professor of Health System and Population Health at Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University (STMU) in Islamabad. He has long standing experience of working at national, regional and global levels in public and private health sectors.
Find out more about the outputs and resources from our linked programmes IMPACT, DiaDeM and the TBMM network. These vary from academic publications, training and capacity building outputs, to communication activities. Please click into the relevant section.
IMPACT Programme 2018-2022
VideosWatch the latest video outputs on our YouTube Channel
Celebrating Women in Science
In 2021, to mark the International Women’s Day and International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the NIHR Global Health Research Group ASTRA based at the University of York made a video to pay tribute to some of the many brilliant women involved in the project. The video highlights their journey creating an uplifting message for all the aspiring women in research.
Behavioural Activation Videos
These videos display how Behavioural Activation can be used to treat mild/moderate depression within existing non-communicable disease clinics across South Asia. The videos were made by Dr Rayeesa Zainab and Dr Sukanya Rajan and the IMPACT team at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India.
Integrating Depression Care into Chronic Communicable Disease (CCD) Services in South Asia
This animation displays the barriers and suggested ways forward to integrating depression screening and care into tuberculosis services in South Asia and is made by Dr Zara Nisar, Dr Saima Afaq and the IMPACT team at Khyber Medical University, Peshawar, Pakistan
Dr Saima Afaq is interviewed on World TB Day, Pakistan 2022. Saima describes the IMPACT Programme and one of the studies which focuses on integrating depression screening and brief therapy into TB services across Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
The video below (recorded in Urdu) was a part of the IMPACT Programme’s CCD Study also known as Depression in Chronic Communicable Diseases. The team made this video for the clinical staff working in the facility of chronic hepatitis services to help them screen depression among patients with chronic hepatitis B and/or C.
This video was shared among 2 of the medical units and a specialized hepatitis care facility called Centre for Liver & Digestive Diseases of Holy Family Hospital, Rawalpindi Pakistan. Approximately 90 people (doctors, nurses and house physicians) used this video as a reference to screen for depression in their routine healthcare practice.
This video is a collection of interviews that reflect on the importance of the IMPACT-CCD hepatitis study. The video was made by the research team in Pakistan and includes the reflections of key stakeholders in the project.
Academic publications
-
Zavala GA, Prasad-Muliyala K, Aslam F on behalf of the IMPACT team et al Prevalence of physical health conditions and health risk behaviours in people with severe mental illness in South Asia: protocol for a cross-sectional study (IMPACT SMI survey) BMJ Open 2020;10:e037869. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-037869
Link to the article here
- Wright J, Mazumdar P, Barua D et al Integrating depression care within NCD provision in Bangladesh and Pakistan: a qualitative study. International Journal of Mental Health Systems 2020 14:63
Link to the article here
- Cook N, Siddiqi N, Twiddy M, et al Patient and public involvement in health research in low and middle-income countries: a systematic review BMJ Open 2019; 9:e026514. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-026514
Link to the article here
- Firth J, Siddiqi N, Koyangi A, Siskind D, Rosenbaum S, Galletly C et al. The Lancet Psychiatry Commission: a blueprint for protecting physical health in people with mental illness. Volume 6, Issue 8, P675-712, August 2019
Link to the article here
- Mishu MP, Peckham EJ, Wright J, Taylor J, Tirbhowan N, Ajjan R, Al Azdi Z, Stubbs B, Churchill R, Siddiqi N. Interventions for preventing type 2 diabetes in adults with mental disorders in low and middle income countries. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2019, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD013281. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD013281.2)
Link to the article here
- Uphoff EP, Newbould L, Walker I, Ashraf N, Chaturvedi S, Kandasamy A, Mazumdar P, Meader N, Naheed A, Rana R, Wright J. A systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence of common mental disorders in people with non-communicable diseases in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Journal of Global Health. 2019 Dec;9
Link to the article here
Conference presentationsOur teams have participated in several conferences and communication activities to share progress and their experience and knowledge.
IMPACT partner organisation – Institute of Psychiatry (IoP)
At the National Annual 10th Public Health Conference of Pakistan at the Health Services Academy on December 3rd 2019, the IMPACT team at IoP made 4 presentations in a mini session allocated to IMPACT during the Mental Health session.
The following presentations were made during the session:
- Introducing the IMPACT programme, Pakistan, Faiza Aslam
- Investigating Mental and Physical Comorbidity, Protocol for a survey in people with severe mental illness in South Asia, Sonia Mansoor
- Behavioural Activation for Comorbid Depression in Non-communicable Disease (BEACON) study, Rahim Safi
- IMPACT smoking cessation support for people with severe mental illness in south Asia (IMPACT 4S): a protocol for a randomised controlled pilot and feasibility trial for a combined behavioural and pharmacological support intervention, Faiza Aslam
Further presentations by IoP
- Presentation providing IMPACT updates and progress at the meetings of ORIC (Office of Research Commercialization and Innovation) of Rawalpindi Medical University (RMU) from October 2019 till Feb 2020, Prof Asad Tamizuddin and Faiza Aslam
- Presentation to introduce IMPACT programme and update at Deans meeting of RMU in November 2019, Dr Asad Tamizudd and Faiza Aslam
- Community Advisory Panel meetings of IMPACT were held on 28thSeptember 2019 for BEACON and on 1stOctober 2019 for SMI/4S
- Presentation at the Clinico-Pathological Conference of RMU held on 12thof March 2020, to introduce IMPACT and share brief findings of the Survey of Physical and Mental Comorbidity, Prof Asad Tamizudd
IMPACT Partner organisation – National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS)
Presentations at the Symposium for the World Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation World congress. 13th December 2019, Bangalore, Krishna Prasad
- Physical health comorbidity in the context of Severe Mental Illness
- Tobacco cessation interventions for persons with Severe Mental Illness
Krishna Prasad also presented ‘Counselling for non-communicable disease risk factors reduction’ at the national level review meeting of NPCDCS in Bangalore, 17th December 2019
IMPACT partner organisation – The University of Dundee, UK
Dr Jan Boehnke presented details of the programme and the SMI survey study, on behalf of the IMPACT group, at an online event ‘The Pandemic – where are we now’, led by the Institute for Social Science Research, University of Dundee. September 2020.
Dr Jan Boehnke presented details of Using a Delphi survey for the development of a core outcome set for multimorbidity studies at the GACD Implementation Science School Class of 2020 Reunion Event on 28th April 2021.
Training in conducting systematic reviewsThe IMPACT programme delivered online systematic review training through a series of webinars. Alongside this the team offered more intensive support for review writing groups. The training was offered in collaboration with Cochrane Common Mental Disorders and Cochrane Global Mental Health.
The aim was for participants to learn how to carry out a systematic review. The writing groups were supported to develop and publish a protocol on topics relevant to the IMPACT programme.
By the end of the webinar series participants had:
- an understanding of the importance of systematic reviews and their role in health/social care policy, practice, and decision making
- an understanding of the individual steps of the SR process and their importance
- the skills to plan and conduct their own SR of interventions, including basic literature searching and meta-analytic knowledge
- awareness of key web-based resources to support the planning and delivery of systematic reviews
You can access the sessions delivered via these YouTube links:
Session 1: Introduction to systematic reviews
Session 2: The review questions and PICOS
Session 3: Literature searching Part 1
Session 4: Literature searching Part 2
Session 6: Software Demonstration/Data Extraction
Session 7: Quality Assessment & Risk of Bias
Session 8: Meta-Analysis Part 1
Session 9: Meta-Analysis Part 2
Session 10: Meta-Analysis Part 3 & Narrative Synthesis
Session 11: Write-Up, Reporting & Knowledge Translation Narative Synthesis
Facilitators in the videos were based at the University of York: Jen Brown, Najma Siddiqi, Noortje Uphoff and Rachel Churchill; and the University of Leeds, Judy Wright.
The production of the webinar series and YouTube recording was supported by the National Institute for Health Research and the Cochrane Infrastructure funding to the Common Mental Disorders Cochrane Review Group. The views expressed in this recording are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the UK Department of Health and Social Care.
Other relevant links:
PROSPERO Website: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/
PROSPERO registration video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MltKLEGad9s&t=3s
Cochrane Interactive Learning: https://training.cochrane.org/interactivelearning
Cochrane Library: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/
Writing for publication The ‘Writing a scientific article’ mentoring-initiative was run by IMPACT over a 6 month period between June – November 2019. It consisted of two-hour interactive sessions once a month and was aimed at researchers who were non-native speakers of English and planning to write research papers for publication in an English-language journal or contribute to submitting research proposals.
The sessions combined theory and practice of scientific writing with a focus on the participants’ research papers
Sessions will focussed on:
- Writing tips
- Structure of sentences and paragraphs
- How to express personal opinions?
- Use of passive voice
- Sentence structure: foregrounding and backgrounding, word order patterns, conditional clauses, definite and indefinite articles, adverbs, prepositional phrases and verb tenses
- Summary and abstract
- Introduction
- Methods
- Results
- Discussion
Click on the links below to download session slides.
Supporting Documents
AIR Webinars
This is an open webinar series on research methods developed by the NIHR ASTRA and IMPACT Groups. Webinars have covered topics ranging from sample sizes for surveys to planning an RCT. These have proved popular attracting over 326 participants with an average of 36 for each webinar.
Other webinars
An additional webinar was run by NIMHANS in March 2020 for South-South capacity building: ‘Physical Health in Severe Mental Illness: Refocusing the Gaze’. There were 140 online participants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Nepal and UK with a variety of organisations joining.
Mentorship programmeThe IMPACT programme has developed a structured mentorship programme which has been primarily driven by the mentees seeking to draw support from assigned mentors for different aspects of development. Personal development plans (PDPs) are built and agreed for each Research Fellow based on an initial assessment of research capacity and the requirements for their role within IMPACT. There is a bi-annual review of progress to review effectiveness of capacity-building activities and to plan for the next period. A final research capacity assessment will be used to reflect on progress during their post.
The documents below are useful tools on how to help step through the process of establishing a relationship within a mentorship programme.
Supporting Documents
Watch the latest video outputs on our YouTube Channel
Celebrating Women in Science
In 2021, to mark the International Women’s Day and International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the NIHR Global Health Research Group ASTRA based at the University of York made a video to pay tribute to some of the many brilliant women involved in the project. The video highlights their journey creating an uplifting message for all the aspiring women in research.
Behavioural Activation Videos
These videos display how Behavioural Activation can be used to treat mild/moderate depression within existing non-communicable disease clinics across South Asia. The videos were made by Dr Rayeesa Zainab and Dr Sukanya Rajan and the IMPACT team at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India.
Integrating Depression Care into Chronic Communicable Disease (CCD) Services in South Asia
This animation displays the barriers and suggested ways forward to integrating depression screening and care into tuberculosis services in South Asia and is made by Dr Zara Nisar, Dr Saima Afaq and the IMPACT team at Khyber Medical University, Peshawar, Pakistan
Dr Saima Afaq is interviewed on World TB Day, Pakistan 2022. Saima describes the IMPACT Programme and one of the studies which focuses on integrating depression screening and brief therapy into TB services across Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
The video below (recorded in Urdu) was a part of the IMPACT Programme’s CCD Study also known as Depression in Chronic Communicable Diseases. The team made this video for the clinical staff working in the facility of chronic hepatitis services to help them screen depression among patients with chronic hepatitis B and/or C.
This video was shared among 2 of the medical units and a specialized hepatitis care facility called Centre for Liver & Digestive Diseases of Holy Family Hospital, Rawalpindi Pakistan. Approximately 90 people (doctors, nurses and house physicians) used this video as a reference to screen for depression in their routine healthcare practice.
This video is a collection of interviews that reflect on the importance of the IMPACT-CCD hepatitis study. The video was made by the research team in Pakistan and includes the reflections of key stakeholders in the project.
-
Zavala GA, Prasad-Muliyala K, Aslam F on behalf of the IMPACT team et al Prevalence of physical health conditions and health risk behaviours in people with severe mental illness in South Asia: protocol for a cross-sectional study (IMPACT SMI survey) BMJ Open 2020;10:e037869. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-037869
Link to the article here - Wright J, Mazumdar P, Barua D et al Integrating depression care within NCD provision in Bangladesh and Pakistan: a qualitative study. International Journal of Mental Health Systems 2020 14:63
Link to the article here - Cook N, Siddiqi N, Twiddy M, et al Patient and public involvement in health research in low and middle-income countries: a systematic review BMJ Open 2019; 9:e026514. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-026514
Link to the article here - Firth J, Siddiqi N, Koyangi A, Siskind D, Rosenbaum S, Galletly C et al. The Lancet Psychiatry Commission: a blueprint for protecting physical health in people with mental illness. Volume 6, Issue 8, P675-712, August 2019
Link to the article here - Mishu MP, Peckham EJ, Wright J, Taylor J, Tirbhowan N, Ajjan R, Al Azdi Z, Stubbs B, Churchill R, Siddiqi N. Interventions for preventing type 2 diabetes in adults with mental disorders in low and middle income countries. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2019, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD013281. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD013281.2)
Link to the article here - Uphoff EP, Newbould L, Walker I, Ashraf N, Chaturvedi S, Kandasamy A, Mazumdar P, Meader N, Naheed A, Rana R, Wright J. A systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence of common mental disorders in people with non-communicable diseases in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Journal of Global Health. 2019 Dec;9
Link to the article here
Our teams have participated in several conferences and communication activities to share progress and their experience and knowledge.
IMPACT partner organisation – Institute of Psychiatry (IoP)
At the National Annual 10th Public Health Conference of Pakistan at the Health Services Academy on December 3rd 2019, the IMPACT team at IoP made 4 presentations in a mini session allocated to IMPACT during the Mental Health session.
The following presentations were made during the session:
- Introducing the IMPACT programme, Pakistan, Faiza Aslam
- Investigating Mental and Physical Comorbidity, Protocol for a survey in people with severe mental illness in South Asia, Sonia Mansoor
- Behavioural Activation for Comorbid Depression in Non-communicable Disease (BEACON) study, Rahim Safi
- IMPACT smoking cessation support for people with severe mental illness in south Asia (IMPACT 4S): a protocol for a randomised controlled pilot and feasibility trial for a combined behavioural and pharmacological support intervention, Faiza Aslam
Further presentations by IoP
- Presentation providing IMPACT updates and progress at the meetings of ORIC (Office of Research Commercialization and Innovation) of Rawalpindi Medical University (RMU) from October 2019 till Feb 2020, Prof Asad Tamizuddin and Faiza Aslam
- Presentation to introduce IMPACT programme and update at Deans meeting of RMU in November 2019, Dr Asad Tamizudd and Faiza Aslam
- Community Advisory Panel meetings of IMPACT were held on 28thSeptember 2019 for BEACON and on 1stOctober 2019 for SMI/4S
- Presentation at the Clinico-Pathological Conference of RMU held on 12thof March 2020, to introduce IMPACT and share brief findings of the Survey of Physical and Mental Comorbidity, Prof Asad Tamizudd
IMPACT Partner organisation – National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS)
Presentations at the Symposium for the World Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation World congress. 13th December 2019, Bangalore, Krishna Prasad
- Physical health comorbidity in the context of Severe Mental Illness
- Tobacco cessation interventions for persons with Severe Mental Illness
Krishna Prasad also presented ‘Counselling for non-communicable disease risk factors reduction’ at the national level review meeting of NPCDCS in Bangalore, 17th December 2019
IMPACT partner organisation – The University of Dundee, UK
Dr Jan Boehnke presented details of the programme and the SMI survey study, on behalf of the IMPACT group, at an online event ‘The Pandemic – where are we now’, led by the Institute for Social Science Research, University of Dundee. September 2020.
Dr Jan Boehnke presented details of Using a Delphi survey for the development of a core outcome set for multimorbidity studies at the GACD Implementation Science School Class of 2020 Reunion Event on 28th April 2021.
The IMPACT programme delivered online systematic review training through a series of webinars. Alongside this the team offered more intensive support for review writing groups. The training was offered in collaboration with Cochrane Common Mental Disorders and Cochrane Global Mental Health.
The aim was for participants to learn how to carry out a systematic review. The writing groups were supported to develop and publish a protocol on topics relevant to the IMPACT programme.
By the end of the webinar series participants had:
- an understanding of the importance of systematic reviews and their role in health/social care policy, practice, and decision making
- an understanding of the individual steps of the SR process and their importance
- the skills to plan and conduct their own SR of interventions, including basic literature searching and meta-analytic knowledge
- awareness of key web-based resources to support the planning and delivery of systematic reviews
You can access the sessions delivered via these YouTube links:
Session 1: Introduction to systematic reviews
Session 2: The review questions and PICOS
Session 3: Literature searching Part 1
Session 4: Literature searching Part 2
Session 6: Software Demonstration/Data Extraction
Session 7: Quality Assessment & Risk of Bias
Session 8: Meta-Analysis Part 1
Session 9: Meta-Analysis Part 2
Session 10: Meta-Analysis Part 3 & Narrative Synthesis
Session 11: Write-Up, Reporting & Knowledge Translation Narative Synthesis
Facilitators in the videos were based at the University of York: Jen Brown, Najma Siddiqi, Noortje Uphoff and Rachel Churchill; and the University of Leeds, Judy Wright.
The production of the webinar series and YouTube recording was supported by the National Institute for Health Research and the Cochrane Infrastructure funding to the Common Mental Disorders Cochrane Review Group. The views expressed in this recording are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the UK Department of Health and Social Care.
Other relevant links:
PROSPERO Website: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/
PROSPERO registration video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MltKLEGad9s&t=3s
Cochrane Interactive Learning: https://training.cochrane.org/interactivelearning
Cochrane Library: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/
The ‘Writing a scientific article’ mentoring-initiative was run by IMPACT over a 6 month period between June – November 2019. It consisted of two-hour interactive sessions once a month and was aimed at researchers who were non-native speakers of English and planning to write research papers for publication in an English-language journal or contribute to submitting research proposals.
The sessions combined theory and practice of scientific writing with a focus on the participants’ research papers
Sessions will focussed on:
- Writing tips
- Structure of sentences and paragraphs
- How to express personal opinions?
- Use of passive voice
- Sentence structure: foregrounding and backgrounding, word order patterns, conditional clauses, definite and indefinite articles, adverbs, prepositional phrases and verb tenses
- Summary and abstract
- Introduction
- Methods
- Results
- Discussion
Click on the links below to download session slides.
Supporting Documents
AIR Webinars
This is an open webinar series on research methods developed by the NIHR ASTRA and IMPACT Groups. Webinars have covered topics ranging from sample sizes for surveys to planning an RCT. These have proved popular attracting over 326 participants with an average of 36 for each webinar.
Other webinars
An additional webinar was run by NIMHANS in March 2020 for South-South capacity building: ‘Physical Health in Severe Mental Illness: Refocusing the Gaze’. There were 140 online participants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Nepal and UK with a variety of organisations joining.
The IMPACT programme has developed a structured mentorship programme which has been primarily driven by the mentees seeking to draw support from assigned mentors for different aspects of development. Personal development plans (PDPs) are built and agreed for each Research Fellow based on an initial assessment of research capacity and the requirements for their role within IMPACT. There is a bi-annual review of progress to review effectiveness of capacity-building activities and to plan for the next period. A final research capacity assessment will be used to reflect on progress during their post.
The documents below are useful tools on how to help step through the process of establishing a relationship within a mentorship programme.
Supporting Documents
DiaDeM Programme
Review search strategy for psychological interventions for depression in people with NCDs in South AsiaMembers of the DiaDeM team are currently undertaking this systematic review, in this document you can see further details of the search strategy.
Supporting Documents
Members of the DiaDeM team are currently undertaking this systematic review, in this document you can see further details of the search strategy.
Supporting Documents
TB Multimorbidity Network
Effect of quitting smoking on health outcomes during treatment for tuberculosis: secondary analysis of the TB & Tobacco TrialPaper written by Dr Kamran Siddiqi published in BMJ Thorax demonstrating that smoking cessation during TB treatment can improve health outcomes.
Supporting Documents
Supporting Documents
An Analysis of the World Health Survey in 48 Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Supporting Documents
Several members of the TB Multimorbidity Network, led by Dr. Siddiqi, published an editorial on the urgency of addressing TB multimorbidity as a global health challenge.
Supporting Documents
Newsletter May 2021 We have published our third newsletter, please click into the document below. If you would like to see anything included in future newsletters please contact us.
Supporting Documents
Newsletter Jan 2021We have published our second newsletter, please click into the document below. If you would like to see anything included in future newsletters please contact us.
Supporting Documents
We have published our first newsletter, please click into the document below. If you would like to see anything included in future newsletters please contact us.
Supporting Documents
The TB Multimorbidity Network held their third network webinar, we shared current research on TB multimorbidity among adolescents and discussed how TB programmes can better meet the needs of young people. Please click here for the video of the webinar, the slides are available in the supporting document below.
Supporting Documents
We held our second network webinar and meeting of the TB Multimorbidity Network, this included policy-makers, practitioners, people with / survivors of TB and academics who shared
evidence and experience of integrating the screening and management of TB and diabetes within routine care in Africa and Asia, please click here for the video of the webinar, the slides are available in the supporting document below.
Supporting Documents
Paper written by Dr Kamran Siddiqi published in BMJ Thorax demonstrating that smoking cessation during TB treatment can improve health outcomes.
Supporting Documents
Supporting Documents
An Analysis of the World Health Survey in 48 Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Supporting Documents
Several members of the TB Multimorbidity Network, led by Dr. Siddiqi, published an editorial on the urgency of addressing TB multimorbidity as a global health challenge.
Supporting Documents
Newsletter May 2021 We have published our third newsletter, please click into the document below. If you would like to see anything included in future newsletters please contact us.
Supporting Documents
Newsletter Jan 2021We have published our second newsletter, please click into the document below. If you would like to see anything included in future newsletters please contact us.
Supporting Documents
We have published our first newsletter, please click into the document below. If you would like to see anything included in future newsletters please contact us.
Supporting Documents
The TB Multimorbidity Network held their third network webinar, we shared current research on TB multimorbidity among adolescents and discussed how TB programmes can better meet the needs of young people. Please click here for the video of the webinar, the slides are available in the supporting document below.
Supporting Documents
We held our second network webinar and meeting of the TB Multimorbidity Network, this included policy-makers, practitioners, people with / survivors of TB and academics who shared
evidence and experience of integrating the screening and management of TB and diabetes within routine care in Africa and Asia, please click here for the video of the webinar, the slides are available in the supporting document below.
Supporting Documents
