Mental Health – Egypt (IFMSA-Egypt)

Name of the activity: Mental Health

Country/NMO: Egypt (IFMSA-Egypt)

Program: Mental Health

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Campaign

General description:

Mental Health has recently been an important concern all-over the world;
since it’s essential to be mentally well to perform promptly in several aspects
of life. Consequently, the idea of this project came to us to spread the word
about what mental health means and how to be mentally healthy in addition to
giving examples of the most prevalent mental illnesses among the population.
We’ve decided to distribute our action plan into workshops and local physical
campaigns in addition to online campaigns to reach as many people as we
can.
Our main target group is medical students all-over Egypt as they’re the future
medical professionals who will be subjected to deal with a variety of people,
so they should be fully aware of the mental health issue.
It’s the first year for the project to be a national one, but we had around three
LCs which had worked on this topic previously. And we’re willing to work on it
for the upcoming years with adding some new steps to the existing ones for
this term.

Focus area:

Mental Health among medical students

Problem statement:

Mental health is defined by the WHO as a “state of wellbeing in which the
individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of
life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his
or her community”.
(WHO) states that one in four people will suffer from mental illness at some point in their lives. At any given time, a huge 450 million people suffer from one or more mental illnesses, and nearly two-thirds of these people do not seek
professional help. Being aware of mental health and mental disorders is very
important, a study shows that 53% of the college students had experienced
depression symptoms during the duration of college with 9% tried to commit
suicide.
Another Study showed high prevalence of anxiety between college students
specially women more than men. It was measured by Fennema-Sherman
mathematics attitude scales (A statistics way of measurement) and it showed
high prevalence of anxiety among students. Students, as a part of society, seem to be victims of these misperceptions and potentially show these aggressive
behaviors and acts of “Stigma” towards mentally handicapped individuals in
general or towards relatives & friends who suffer from mental disorders.
Stigma is a common and a significant inhibitor in progressing rights for those with mental illness and requires addressing. Stigma can also lead to acceptance of maltreatment, abuse and other unacceptable practices within health services.
stigma can harden the process of therapy of mentally handicapped patients and
prevent them badly from being healthy productive individuals once capable of re-
joining society.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

1.National Workshop: 20 medical students.
2.Online Campaign: 10,000 viewers.
3. Local Workshop: 30 medical students in each Local Committee.
4. Local Campaign: 6,500 medical students.
5. Closing Ceremony: 200 IFMSA-Egypt Members.

Objectives and indicators of success:

Goal 1: De-stigmatization of mental disorders among about 2500 medical
students, the most prevalent mental disorders in Egypt and how important the
examination is by October, 2018.
Obj. 1.1: Conducting a national workshop to provide IFMSA-Egypt with well-
trained medical students about mental illness and how to end stigma.
Obj. 1.2: Raising awareness among about 2500 medical students through physical awareness campaigns in faculties of Medicine in all Egypt.

Goal 2: De-stigmatization of mental disorders among about 4000 university
students, the mental health concepts which enable the individual well-being
and the general features of the most prevalent mental diseases (especially
students of arts and education faculties about children mental diseases) by
October, 2018.
Obj. 2.1: Raising awareness about mental health, the effect of stigma on people
with mental illness, how to deal with people with mental illness and correct the
wrong concepts and beliefs about mental illness through launching physical
awareness campaign at universities allover Egypt (to be decided later).
Obj. 2.2: Raising awareness about psychotherapy and its importance.

Goal 3: Provide attractive simplified educative content about the most
prevalent mental disorders in the society by January, 2018.
Obj. 3.1: Raising awareness among medical students about mental illness and
correct the wrong concepts and beliefs about mental illness through launching
national and local online campaigns.

Goal 4: Prepare 25-50 qualified IFMSA-Egypt members to explain the etiology of mental diseases and how to deal with patients to reduce patients’ suffering by
November, 2017.
Obj. 4.1: Conducting a workshop in collaboration with TSDD to conduct soft skills training session.
Obj. 4.2: Conducting psychiatry session to enable the trainees to be able to know
the alarming signs and de-stigmatize mental disorders in society.

Methodology:

1.National workshop:
Target group: 25-50 members who will participate in the project locally and
nationally.
 Open call for choosing hosting LC.
 Contact a psychiatrist to conduct this workshop.
 Collaborate with TSDD to conduct a soft skills session.
ILOs:
A. Knowing Public health significance of mental health.
B. Can illustrate general causes of mental illnesses.
C. Know specific info about (Schizophrenia, Depression and ADHD).
D. Anti-stigma.
E. Can conduct this workshop locally.
F. Participate in the simple educative content.
Outcome: 45 qualified members to explain mental health topic as a whole.
Initiative step for the simple educative content.
Timeline: 23 rd & 24 th of November, 2017.

2. Online awareness campaign:
Target group: 10000 social media audience.
 Simple awareness message in a creative form of “Posts, Photos, GIFs, and
videos” of psychiatric diseases & local online campaigns for each LC.
Outcome: Raise awareness of 10000 social media audience about de-
stigmatization, fact about mental illnesses and how important the examination is.
Timeline: First week of December, 2017.

3. Physical campaigns:
Target group: 6500 medical and university students.
 Local physical campaigns for each LC.
 National movie day and NVC workshop.
Outcome: Raise awareness about de-stigmatization of mental disorders, the
mental health concepts which enable the individual well-being and the general
features of the most prevalent mental diseases.
Timeline: December, 2017 – March, 2018.

4. Closing ceremony:
Target group: 200 IFMSA-Egypt members.
 2 scientific sessions.
 1 session for presenting project results.
 Theater play.
 Seeking one public figure attending.
Timeline: August, 2018.

Plans for evaluation:

Monitoring:
 Continuous Follow-up with All LCs sharing in the project.
 Competition between LCs to select the best one.
 Periodic reporting from each LC showing the progress of:
A. Physical campaign steps.
B. Survey Data.
C. Movie Day documentation.
D. Peer-Education and sustainability.

Evaluation:
 Research study to assess the efficiency of physical campaigns.
 Performing Evaluation sheet filled by every local coordinator, LPO/LORP of
each LC sharing in the project.
 SWOT analysis for each step & Phase separately, then overall
evaluation for the whole project.
 Half-year report by the national coordinator.
 End-term report by the national coordinator.