Keynote 25 - Psychological Interventions for Global Use: Experience-based Reflections, Key Lessons and Future Directions

Globally, more than a billion people live with a mental health condition, with the majority unable to access evidence-based care. Psychological interventions, including digitally delivered interventions, supported by trained and supervised non-specialists, are recommended by The World Health Organization (WHO) for a number of mental health conditions and have the potential to help reduce the substantial treatment gap. Over the past decade, WHO has contributed to this field through the development and testing of a number of open-access, evidence-based psychological interventions, which have now been implemented and scaled in countries. Drawing on this body of work and country examples, this talk will reflect on key challenges, successes and lessons arising from the experience of developing and scaling psychological interventions. It will consider critical features of intervention design and development, as well as factors that may be important for successful implementation. The talk aims to offer practical and actionable considerations for clinicians, implementers and researchers involved in the development, adaptation or delivery of mental health interventions, particularly in low-resource and conflict-affected settings, and to highlight potential future directions for research and development.