Group Support Psychotherapy (GSP)
MLC Pioneer* | Created by SEEK-GSP as part of Makerere University
Group Support Psychotherapy treats depression by enhancing emotional & social support, ability to practice positive coping skills & income generating skills.
5,000 Lives Impacted
Group support psychotherapy(GSP)has been scaled up and integrated into HIV care in rural communities in three northern districts of Uganda. 100 primary health care workers and 200 lay health workers have managed to treat depression in over 5000 people living with HIV over a two-year funding period. Evaluation of GSP using a cluster randomized controlled trial during a two-year funding period indicated that GSP was highly cost-effective, had high (80%) session adherence rates, and led to income generation, improved ART adherence and viral suppression. Increasing the number of trained lay health workers to 1000 in each of the five geographical regions in Uganda would reach approximately 200,000 affected individuals annually. Within the next 5 years, GSP has the potential to eliminate the treatment gap for depression, curb HIV transmission, save families from hunger and enable more children to stay in school.
The Innovation
GSP was designed to treat depression by enhancing emotional and social support networks, the ability to practice positive coping skills, and income-generating skills. Delivering GSP does not require on-going input from expert mental health practitioners. Instead, existing primary health care workers in rural health centres have been trained to deliver GSP sessions. In turn, they have been able to train lay health workers to identify and treat individuals with depression using village-based weekly GSP sessions – thus empowering local communities to take control of their own mental health needs.
About Makerere University & SEEK-GSP
SEEK-GSP is a research based project at Makerere University
Makerere University is Uganda’s largest and oldest institution of higher learning that developed the SEEK-GSP program. Their mission and vision is to provide culturally appropriate and cost-effective mental health treatments to save and improve lives of those affected by depression by empowering African communities socially, emotionally and economically. In so doing, the SEEK-GSP program will reduce inequalities between rural and urban areas and also promote decent work and economic growth in rural communities.
*Seek-GSP is an MLC Pioneer Member. The MLC Pioneer cohort aimed to highlight innovations that have scaled to meet the needs of a significant proportion (i.e. 40%+) of their target populations. This cohort was included in the 2019 and 2020 application rounds, however it was phased out in 2021.
