- Discussion
- 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_265_22
Education on mental health topics to primary care physicians and undergraduate medical students in Indonesia
- Sep 01, 2022
- Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care
- Darien A Cipta
As a culturally diverse country, Indonesia is also facing multiple challenges in mental health. This double burden of mental health lies between two poles. At one pole is the rural and more peripheral regions of Indonesia, where the public’s awareness of mental health issues and the availability of mental health care are still relatively low. On the other pzole, the increasing awareness of mental health, and sometimes overuse and misconception of the terms, in the daily life of urban settings and the millennial population. A focused-group discussion led by world organization of family doctors (WONCA) Working Party for Mental Health’s initiative in March 2021, between the author and four primary care doctors, showed that primary care colleagues in the urban setting are interested in managing common mental disorders like depression and anxiety. The finding of this discussion is in-line with an earlier survey among general practitioners in the Asia Pacific region who perceive mental health as the most desired area for education.[1] However, they vary in their confidence and perceived level of knowledge and skills. According to one participant, a barrier to managing common mental disorders in public primary care services is that the success of case management has not been used as an indicator of achievement. This issue will need to be addressed by policymakers and all stakeholders. The author’s experience teaching undergraduate medical students in an urban setting in Indonesia showed that they are enthusiastic about mental health issues. Integrating mental health into the larger picture of medical education through multidisciplinary collaboration with other related specialties, e.g., experts in adolescent health, was done by developing an integrative module in which mental health plays a pivotal part. Through this method, an educator is expected to bring the science of mental health closer to clinical realities, not as an isolated science from other disciplines in the medical field. This paradigm improvement also influences the choice of the module contents. Instead of focusing merely on psychosis, try to introduce mood disorders, borderline personality, eating disorders, addiction (substance and behavioral), sleep problems, and stress management, which are more related to their daily observation as urban citizens. The emphasis on the two latter problems represents the indirect prevention approach to depression, which has recently been described as an emerging paradigm.[2] The teaching objective also needs to highlight the importance of counseling and psychotherapy as modality treatments to give medical undergraduates a holistic picture of psychiatry. Innovation has also been done in the assignments by asking students to reflect upon contemporary arts such as movies, novels, songs, or poems. Students are also given an option to accomplish the module by creating an educational project using social media to educate the public on mental health issues. At the end of the module, the students are welcomed for direct and on-site feedback using interactive website features. Finally, innovative teaching of mental health was carried out by modifying the content and format of delivery to align with the clinical problems they would encounter contextually, namely, common mental disorders, with a multidisciplinary approach. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.
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