Kaolack, Oct 10 (APS) – The director of the Center for Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the Fann University Hospital Center (Dakar), Professor Moussa Seydi, believes that mental health care must be integrated into the types of care care of HIV-infected patients.
“It is normal for us to say that mental health care must be integrated into the types of care for patients infected with HIV,” he said.
This integration is all the more necessary since one in five patients presents symptoms of nervous breakdown, insisted the teacher-researcher.
He spoke in Kaolack (center), on the occasion of the launch, by the Minister of Health and Social Action, Ibrahima Sy, of the 32nd World Mental Health Day focused on the theme “It is time to prioritize mental health at work”.
Moussa Seydi, full professor at the Chair of Infectious Diseases at the Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy and Odontostomatology at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, gave a presentation on mental health and HIV infection in Senegal.
He considers that “mental health is generally neglected in Africa”.
”During Covid-19, he recalled, there was an increase in anxiety and cases of depression by 25% worldwide. Therefore, infectious diseases can be linked to all pathologies. Mental health disorders, particularly depression, constitute the third leading cause of morbidity among non-communicable diseases,” he explained.
For Professor Seydi, “depression, the mental disorder most commonly found around HIV infection, is largely underdiagnosed” in sub-Saharan Africa.
It is the same in Senegal, due to the “taboo” surrounding the disease and a lack of specialists in this field. In addition, health professionals are poorly trained in the management of mental disorders, taking into account a lack of information on this issue.
”In Senegal, we carried out five study projects, with sub-studies, which were all funded by the +National institute of mental health+ (National Institute of Mental Health of the United States of America, NIMH, in English), one of the 27 institutes which depend on NIMH,” he underlined.
These projects, in which Africans and French people worked, were carried out as part of a broad collaboration to focus on screening and treatment.
”Studies have been done on the determinants of depression during HIV infection and we will also work on awareness content. Work was started on depression in 2018 by carrying out an active and practical knowledge survey on depression among health professionals, recalled Professor Seydi.
This survey revealed the lack of training for health professionals, particularly at sites caring for HIV-infected patients, he said. He also specifies that it was carried out in two phases at the level of infectious diseases and the outpatient treatment center.
”These studies confirmed to us that interprofessional group therapy, which is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) in developing countries, was not only feasible, but it was well accepted,” he informed.
He explains that ”the results were positive, because there was an impact on improving the quality of life of patients, allowing health practitioners to better manage certain cases of depression without medication”.
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